THE 

VERY  SMALL 
PERSON 


ANNIE  1 

HAMILTON 

DONNELL 


THAT  IS  WHERE  WE  PLAY 1  MEAN  IT  IS  MOST  PLEASANT 

THERE'" 


THE 

VERY  SMALL  PERSON 


BY 

ANNIE   HAMILTON   DONNELL 

AUTHOR  OF  "  REBECCA  MARY" 


ILLUSTRATED   BY 

ELIZABETH  SHIPPEN  GREEN 


NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 

HARPER   &  BROTHERS  PUBLISHERS 

MCMVI 


Copyright,  1901,  1902,  1903,  1906,  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS. 
Copyright,  1903,  1905,  by  HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  &  Co. 

All  rights  rturvtd. 

Published  October,  1906. 


Contents 

CHAP.  PAGE 

I.  LITTLE   BLUE  OVERALLS 3 

II.  THE  BOY 21 

III.  THE  ADOPTED 35 

IV.  BOBBY  UNWELCOME 57 

V.  THE    LITTLE    GIRL    WHO    SHOULD    HAVE 

BEEN  A  BOY 69 

VI.  THE  LIE 83 

VII.  THE  PRINCESS  OF  MAKE-BELIEVE      ...  97 

VIII.  THE  PROMISE 109 

IX.  THE  LITTLE  LOVER 133 

X.  THE  CHILD 153 

XI.  THE  RECOMPENSE 173 


Illustrations 


THAT  IS  WHERE   WE   PLAY 1  MEAN   IT   IS 

MOST   PLEASANT  THERE  '  " Frontispiece 

"LITTLE  BLUE  OVERALLS  CLIMBED  INTO  A 

CHAIR" Facing  p.        6 

""FORE    I'D   LEAN   MY   CHIN   ON   FOLKS'S 

GATES   AND    WATCH    'EM!'" "  36 

"SHE  STAYED  THERE  A  WEEK A  MONTH 

A  YEAR" 44 

"IT  WAS  WORSE  THAN  CREEPY,  CREAKY 

NOISES" 84 

"'i  CAN'T  PLAY  .  .  .  I'M  BEING  GOOD'"  .  "112 

"MURRAY  HAD  .  .  .  SEEN  THE  VISION,  TOO  "  "      116 

ELIZABETH  "         l6o 


CHAPTER   I 

Little    Blue   Overalls 


Little   Blue   Overalls 


JISS  SALOME'S  face  was 
gently  frowning  as  she  wrote. 
"DEAR  JOHN,"  the  letter 
began, — "  It's  all  very  well 
except  one  thing.  I  wonder 
you  didn't  think  of  that. 
I'm  thinking  of  it  most  of  the  time,  and  it 
takes  away  so  much  of  the  pleasure  of  the 
rose-garden  and  the  raspberry-bushes!  Anne 
is  in  raptures  over  the  raspberry-bushes. 

"Yes,  the  raspberries  and  the  roses  are 
all  right.  And  I  like  the  stone  -  wall  with 
the  woodbine  over  it.  (Good  boy,  you  re- 
membered that,  didn't  you?)  And  the  ap- 
ple-tree and  the  horse-chestnut  and  the  elm 
— of  course  I  like  them. 

"The  house  is  just  big  enough  and  just 


The  Very  Small   Person 

small  enough,  and  there's  a  trunk  -  closet, 
as  I  stipulated.  And  Anne's  room  has  a 
'southern  exposure' — Anne's  crazy  spot  is 
southern  exposures.  Mine's  it.  Dear,  dear, 
John,  how  could  you  forget  it  I  That  every- 
thing else — closets  and  stone-walls  and  ex- 
posures—  should  be  to  my  mind  but  that! 
Well,  I  am  thinking  of  moving  out,  before 
I  move  in.  But  I  haven't  told  Anne.  Anne 
is  the  kind  of  person  not  to  tell,  until  the  last 
moment.  It  saves  one's  nerves — heigh-ho! 
I  thought  I  was  coming  here  to  get  away 
from  nerves!  I  was  so  satisfied.  I  really 
meant  to  thank  you,  John,  until  I  discovered 
— it.  Oh  yes,  I  know — Elizabeth  is  looking 
over  your  shoulder,  and  you  two  are  saying 
something  that  is  unfit  for  publication  about 
old  maids!  My  children,  then  thank  the 
Lord  you  aren't  either  of  you  old  maids. 
Make  the  most  of  it." 

Miss  Salome  let  her  pen  slip  to  the  bare 
floor  and  gazed  before  her  wistfully.  The 
room  was  in  the  dreary  early  stages  of  un- 
packing, but  it  was  not  of  that  Miss  Salome 
was  thinking.  Her  eyes  were  gazing  out 
4 


Little  Blue  Overalls 

of  the  window  at  a  thin  gray  trail  of  smoke 
against  the  blue  ground  of  the  sky.  She 
could  see  the  little  house,  too,  brown  and 
tiny  and  a  little  battered.  She  could  see 
the  clothes-line,  and  count  easily  enough  the 
pairs  of  little  stockings  on  it.  She  caught 
up  the  pen  again  fiercely. 

"There  are  eight,"  she  wrote.  "Allow- 
ing two  legs  to  a  child,  doesn't  that  make 
four  ?  John  Dearborn,  you  have  bought  me 
a  house  next  door  to  four  children!  I  think 
I  shall  begin  to  put  the  books  back  to-night. 
As  ill  luck  will  have  it,  they  are  all  unpacked. 

"I  have  said  nothing  to  Anne;  Anne  has 
said  nothing  to  me.  But  we  both  know. 
She  has  counted  the  stockings  too.  We 
are  both  old  maids.  No,  I  have  not  seen 
them  yet — anything  but  their  stockings  on 
the  clothes-line.  But  the  mother  is  not  a 
washer-woman — there  is  no  hope.  I  don't 
know  how  I  know  she  isn't  a  washer-wom- 
an, but  I  do.  It  is  impressed  upon  me.  So 
there  are  four  children,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
Lord  knows  how  many  babies  still  in  socks! 
I  cannot  forgive  you,  John." 
5 


The  Very  Small  Person 

Miss  Salome  had  been  abroad  for  many 
years.  Stricken  suddenly  with  homesick- 
ness, she  and  her  ancient  serving-woman, 
Anne,  had  fled  across  seas  to  their  native 
land.  Miss  Salome  had  first  commissioned 
John,  long-suffering  John,  —  adviser,  busi- 
ness-manager, brother, — to  find  her  a  snug 
little  home  with  specified  adjuncts  of  trunk- 
closets,  elm,  apple,  and  horse-chestnut  trees, 
woodbiney  stone -walls — and  a  "southern 
exposure"  for  Anne.  John  had  done  his 
best.  But  how  could  he  have  forgotten, 
and  Elizabeth  have  forgotten,  and  Miss 
Salome  herself  have  forgotten — it?  Every 
one  knew  Miss  Salome's  distaste  for  little 
children.  Anne's  too,  though  Anne  was 
more  taciturn  than  her  mistress. 

"Hullo!" 

Miss  Salome  started.  In  the  doorway  stood 
a  very  small  person  in  blue  jeans  overalls. 

"  Hullo!  I  want  your  money  or  your  life! 
I'm  a  'wayman." 

"A  —  what?"   Miss   Salome  managed   to 
ejaculate.      The   Little    Blue    Overalls    ad- 
vanced a  few  feet  into  the  room. 
6 


Little  Blue  Overalls 

"Robber,  you  know; — you  know  what 
robbers  are,  don't  you?  I'm  one.  You 
needn't  call  me  a  highwayman,  I'm  so — so 
low.  Just  'wayman  '11  do.  Why,  gracious! 
you  ain't  afraid,  are  you?  You  needn't  be, 
— I  won't  hurt  you!"  and  a  sweet- toned,  de- 
lighted little  laugh  echoed  through  the  bare 
room.  "You  needn't  give  me  your  money 
or  your  life.  Never  mind.  I'll  'scuse  you." 

Miss  Salome  uttered  no  word  at  all.  Of 
course  this  boy  belonged  in  a  pair  of  those 
stockings  over  there.  It  was  no  more  than 
was  to  be  expected. 

"  It's  me.  I'm  not  a  'wayman  any  more, 
— just  me.  I  heard  you'd  come,  so  I  thought 
I'd  come  an'  see  you.  You  glad?  Why 
don't  you  ask  me  will  I  take  a  seat?" 

"Will  I — will  you  take  a  seat?"  repeated 
Miss  Salome,  as  if  she  were  saying  a  lesson. 
The  Little  Blue  Overalls  climbed  into  a 
chair. 

"Looks  pretty  bad  here,  doesn't  it?  I 
guess  you  forgot  to  sweep,"  he  said,  assum- 
ing social  curves  in  his  plump  little  body. 
He  had  the  air  of  having  come  to  stay.  Miss 
7 


The  Very  Small   Person 

Salome's  lips,  under  orders  to  tighten,  found 
themselves  unexpectedly  relaxing  into  a 
smile.  The  Little  Blue  Overalls  was  amusing. 

"We've  got  a  sofy,  an'  a  rockin'-chair. 
The  sofy's  new,  but  Chessie's  broke  a  hole 
in  it." 

"Are  there  four  of  you?"  Miss  Salome 
asked,  abruptly.  It  was  the  Little  Blue 
Overalls'  turn  to  start  now. 

"Me?  —  gracious!  four  o'  me?  I  guess 
you're  out  o'  your  head,  aren't —  Oh,  you 
mean  child'en!  Well,  there's  five,  'thout 
countin'  the  spandy  new  one  —  she's  too 
little  to  count." 

Five  —  six,  with  the  spandy  new  one! 
Miss  Salome's  gaze  wandered  from  the  piles 
of  books  on  the  floor  to  the  empty  packing- 
boxes,  as  if  trying  to  find  the  shortest  dis- 
tance. 

"There  are  only  four  pairs  on  the  line," 
she  murmured,  weakly,  — "stockings,"  she 
added.  The  Little  Blue  Overalls  nodded 
comprehendingly. 

"  I  don't  wear  'em  summers, — I  guess  you 
didn't  notice  I  was  in  my  bare  feet,  did  you? 
8 


Little  Blue  Overalls 

Well,  I  am.  It's  a  savin'.  The  rest  are 
nothing  but  girls — I'm  all  the  boy  we've  got. 
Boys  are  tough.  But  I  don't  suppose  you 
ever  was  one,  so  you  don't  know?"  There 
was  an  upward  inflection  to  the  voice  of  the 
Little  Blue  Overalls.  An  answer  seemed  ex- 
pected. 

"No — no,  I  never  was  one,"  Miss  Salome 
said,  hastily.  She  could  hear  Anne's  plod- 
ding steps  in  the  hall.  It  would  be  em- 
barrassing to  have  Anne  come  in  now.  But 
the  footsteps  plodded  by.  After  more  con- 
versation on  a  surprising  number  of  topics, 
the  Little  Blue  Overalls  climbed  out  of  the 
chair. 

"I've  had  a  'joyable  time,  an'  I'll  be 
pleased  to  come  again,  thank  you,"  he  said, 
with  cheerful  politeness.  "I'm  glad  you've 
come, — I  like  you,  but  I  hope  you'll  sweep 
your  floor."  He  retreated  a  few  steps,  then 
faced  about  again  and  advanced  into  the 
enemy's  near  neighborhood.  He  was  hold- 
ing out  a  very  small,  brown,  unwashed  hand. 
"I  forgot  'bout  shakin'  hands,"  he  smiled. 
"  Le's.  I  hope  you  like  me,  too,  an'  I  guess 
9 


The  Very  Small   Person 

you  do,  don't  you?  Everybody  does.  No- 
body ever  didn't  like  me  in  my  life,  an'  I'm 
seven.  Good-bye." 

Miss  Salome  heard  him  patter  down  the 
hall,  and  she  half  thought — she  was  not  sure 
— -that  at  the  kitchen  door  he  stopped.  Half 
an  hour  afterwards  she  saw  a  very  small  per- 
son crossing  the  rose-garden.  If  there  was 
something  in  his  hands  that  he  was  eating, 
Miss  Salome  never  asked  Anne  about  it.  It 
was  not  her  way  to  ask  Anne  questions.  It 
was  not  Anne's  way  to  ask  her.  The  letter 
to  John  was  finished,  oddly  enough,  without 
further  mention  of — it.  Miss  Salome  got  the 
broom  and  swept  the  bare  big  room  care- 
fully. She  hummed  a  little  as  she  worked. 
Out  in  the  kitchen  Anne  was  humming  too. 

"It  is  a  pleasant  little  place,  especially 
the  stone -wall  and  the  woodbine,"  Miss 
Salome  was  thinking;  "I'm  glad  I  speci- 
fied woodbine  and  stone-walls.  John  would 
never  have  thought.  So  many  other  things 
are  pleasant,  too;  but,  dear,  dear,  it  is  very 
unfortunate  about  that  one  thing!"  Still 
Miss  Salome  hummed,  and  after  tea  she  got 

10 


Little  Blue  Overalls 

Anne  to  help  her  move  out  the  empty  pack- 
ing-boxes. 

The  next  day  the  Little  Blue  Overalls  came 
again.  This  time  he  was  a  peddler,  with 
horse-chestnut  "apples"  to  sell,  and  rose- 
petal  pies.  He  said  they  were  bargains. 

"  You  can  truly  eat  the  pies,"  he  remarked. 
"There's  a  little  sugar  in  'em.  I  saved  it  off 
the  top  o'  her  bun,"  indicating  Anne's  locality 
with  a  jerk  of  his  little  cropped  head.  So  it 
was  a  fact,  was  it?  He  had  been  eating 
something  when  he  crossed  the  rose-garden  ? 
Miss  Salome  wondered  at  Anne. 

The  next  day,  and  the  next, — every  day 
the  Little  Blue  Overalls  came,  always  in  a 
new  character.  Miss  Salome  found  herself 
watching  for  him.  She  could  catch  the 
little  blue  glint  of  very  small  overalls  as  soon 
as  they  got  to  the  far  side  of  the  rose-garden. 
But  for  Anne,  at  the  end  of  the  first  week 
she  would  have  gone  out  to  meet  him.  Dear, 
dear,  but  for  Miss  Salome,  Anne  would  have 
gone ! 

The  Little  Blue  Overalls  confided  his 
troubles  to  Miss  Salome.  He  told  her 
ii 


The  Very  Small  Person 

how  hard  it  was  to  be  the  only  boy,  — 
how  impossible,  of  course,  it  was  to  play 
girly  plays,  and  how  he  had  longed  to  find 
a  congenial  spirit.  Mysteriously  enough,  he 
appeared  confident  that  he  had  found  the 
congenial  spirit  at  last.  Miss  Salome's  petti- 
coats seemed  no  obstacle.  He  showed  her 
his  pocketful  of  treasures.  He  taught  her 
to  whittle,  and  how  to  bear  it  when  she 
"bleeded."  He  taught  her  to  whistle — 
very  softly,  on  account  of  Anne.  (He  taught 
Anne,  too — softly,  on  account  of  Miss  Sa- 
lome.) He  let  her  make  sails  for  his  boats, 
and  sew  on  his  buttons, — those  that  Anne 
didn't  sew  on. 

"Dear  John,"  wrote  Miss  Salome,  "the 
raspberries  are  ripe.  When  you  were  a  very 
small  person — say  seven — did  you  ever  mash 
them  between  raspberry  leaves,  with  'sugar 
in, '  and  call  them  pies,  —  and  eat  them  ? 
They  are  really  palatable.  Of  course  it  is  a 
little  risky  on  account  of  possible  bugs.  I 
don't  remember  that  you  were  a  remarkable 
little  boy.  Were  you?  Did  you  ever  play 
you  were  a  highwayman,  or  an  elephant,  or 

12 


Little  Blue  Overalls 

anything  of  that  sort?  Queer  I  can't  re- 
member. 

"Anne  is  delighted  with  her  southern 
exposure,  but  she  has  never  said  so.  That 
is  why  I  know  she  is.  I  am  delighted  with 
the  roses  and  the  closets  and  the  horse- 
chestnut  —  especially  the  horse  -  chestnut. 
That  is  where  we  play — I  mean  it  is  most 
pleasant  there,  hot  afternoons.  Did  you  use 
to  dote  on  horse-chestnuts?  Queer  boys 
should.  But  I  rather  like  them  myself,  in  a 
way, — out  of  the  way!  We  have  picked  up 
a  hundred  and  seventeen."  Miss  Salome 
dropped  into  the  plural  number  innocently, 
and  Elizabeth  laughed  over  John's  shoulder. 
Elizabeth  did  the  reading  between  the  lines. 
John  was  only  a  man. 

One  day  Little  Blue  Overalls  was  late. 
He  came  from  the  direction  of  the  stable 
that  adjoined  Miss  Salome's  house.  He  was 
excited  and  breathless.  A  fur  rug  was 
draped  around  his  shoulders  and  trailed  un- 
comfortably behind  him. 

"Come  on!"  he  cried,  eagerly.  "It's  a 
circus!  I'm  the  grizzled  bear.  There's  a 
13 


The  Very  Small   Person 

four-legged  girl — Chessie,  you  know,  with 
stockin's  on  her  hands, — and  a  Manx  rooster 
('thout  any  tail),  and,  oh,  my!  the  splendid- 
est  livin'  skeleton  you  ever  saw!  I  want  you 
to  be  man'ger — come  on!  It's  easy  enough. 
You  poke  us  with  a  stick,  an'  we  perform.  I 
dance,  an'  the  four -legged  girl  walks,  an' 
the  rooster  crows,  an'  the  skeleton  skel — 
Oh,  well,  you  needn't  poke  the  skeleton." 

The  Little  Blue  Overalls  paused  for  breath. 
Miss  Salome  laid  aside  her  work.  Where 
was  Anne  ? — but  the  stable  could  be  reached 
without  passing  the  kitchen  windows.  Sat- 
urdays Anne  was  very  busy,  anyway. 

"I'm  ready,"  laughed  Miss  Salome.  She 
had  never  been  a  circus-manager,  but  she 
could  learn.  It  was  easier  than  whittling. 
Together  they  hurried  away  to  the  stable. 
At  the  door  Miss  Salome  came  to  an  abrupt 
stop.  An  astonished  exclamation  escaped  her. 

The  living  skeleton  sat  on  an  empty  barrel, 
lean  and  grave  and  patient.  The  living 
skeleton  also  uttered  an  exclamation.  She 
and  the  circus-manager  gazed  at  each  other 
in  a  remarkable  way,  as  if  under  a  spell. 
14 


Little  Blue  Overalls 

"Come  on!"  shouted  the  grizzled  bear. 

After  that,  Miss  Salome  and  Anne  were 
not  so  reserved.  What  was  the  use?  And 
it  was  much  easier,  after  all,  to  be  found 
out.  Things  ran  along  smoothly  and  pleas- 
antly after  that. 

Late  in  the  autumn,  Elizabeth,  looking 
over  John's  shoulder  one  day,  laughed,  then 
cried  out,  sharply.  "Oh!"  she  said;  "oh,  I 
am  sorry!"  And  John  echoed  her  an  instant 
later. 

"Dear  John,"  the  letter  said,  "when  you 
were  little  were  you  ever  very  sick,  and  did 
you  die  ?  Oh,  I  see,  but  don't  laugh.  I 
think  I  am  a  little  out  of  my  head  to-day. 
One  is  when  one  is  anxious.  And  Little 
Blue  Overalls  is  very  sick.  I  found  Anne 
crying  a  little  while  ago,  and  just  now  she 
came  in  and  found  me.  She  didn't  mind; 
I  don't. 

"He  did  not  come  yesterday  or  the  day 
before.  Yesterday  I  went  to  see  why.  Anne 
was  just  coming  away  from  the  door.  'He's 
sick,'  she  said,  in  her  crisp,  sharp  way, — you 
know  it,  John, — but  she  was  white  in  the 
15 


The  Very  Small   Person 

face.  The  little  mother  came  to  the  door. 
Queer  I  had  never  seen  her  before, — Little 
Blue  Overalls  has  her  blue  eyes. 

"There  were  two  or  three  small  persons 
clinging  to  her,  and  the  very  smallest  one 
I  ever  saw  was  in  her  arms.  She  looked 
fright — "  The  letter  broke  off  abruptly 
here.  Another  slip  was  enclosed  that  began 
as  abruptly.  "Anne  says  it  is  scarlet-fever. 
The  doctor  has  been  there  just  now.  I  am 
going  to  have  him  brought  over  here — you 
know  I  don't  mean  the  doctor.  And  you 
would  not  smile,  either  of  you — not  Eliza- 
beth, anyway,  for  she  will  think  of  her  own 
babies — " 

"Yes,  yes,"  Elizabeth  cried,  "I  am  think- 
ing!" 

" — That  is  why  he  must  not  stay  over 
there.  There  are  so  many  babies.  I  am 
going  over  there  now." 

The  letter  that  followed  this  one  was  a 
week  delayed. 

"Dear  John,"  it  said,  —  "you  must  be 
looking  out  for  another  place.  If  anything 
should — he  is  very  sick,  John!  And  I  could 
16 


Little  Blue  Overalls 

not  stay  here  without  him.  Nor  Anne. 
John,  would  you  ever  think  that  Anne  was 
born  a  nurse?  Well,  the  Lord  made  her 
one.  I  have  found  it  out.  Not  with  a  little 
dainty  white  cap  on,  and  a  nurse's  apron,— 
not  that  kind,  but  with  light,  cool  fingers 
and  a  great,  tender  heart.  That  is  the  Lord's 
kind,  and  it's  Anne.  She  is  taking  beautiful 
care  of  our  Little  Blue  Overalls.  The  little 
mother  and  I  appreciate  Anne.  But  he  is 
very  very  sick,  John. 

"I  could  not  stay  here.  Why,  there  isn't 
a  spot  that  wouldn't  remind  me!  There's  a 
faint  little  path  worn  in  the  grass  beside 
the  stone-wall  where  he  has  been  'sentry.' 
There's  a  bare  spot  under  the  horse-chest- 
nut where  he  played  blacksmith  and  '  shoe-ed ' 
the  saw-horse.  And  he  used  to  pounce  out 
on  me  from  behind  the  old  elm  and  demand 
my  money  or  my  life, — he  was  a  highwayman 
the  first  time  I  saw  him.  I've  bought  rose- 
pies  and  horse-chestnut  apples  of  him  on  the 
front  door-steps.  We've  played  circus  in 
the  barn.  We've  been  Indians  and  gypsies 
and  Rough  Riders  all  over  the  place.  You 


The  Very  Small   Person 

must  look  round  for  another  one,  John.  I 
can't  stay  here. 

"Here's  Anne.  She  says  he  is  asleep  now. 
Before  he  went  he  sent  word  to  me  that  he 
was  a  wounded  soldier,  and  he  wished  I'd 
make  a  red  cross  and  sew  it  on  Anne's  sleeve. 
I  must  go  and  make  it.  Good-bye.  The 
letter  will  not  smell  good  because  I  shall 
fumigate  it,  on  account  of  Elizabeth's  babies. 
You  need  not  be  afraid." 

There  was  no  letter  at  all  the  next  week, 
early  or  late,  and  they  were  afraid  Little  Blue 
Overalls  was  dead.  Elizabeth  hugged  her 
babies  close  and  cried  softly  over  their  little, 
bright  heads.  Then  shortly  afterwards  the 
telegram  came,  and  she  laughed — and  cried 
— over  that.  It  was  as  welcome  as  it  was 
guiltless  of  punctuation: 

"Thank  the  Lord  John  Little  Blue  Over- 
alls is  going  to  get  well." 


CHAPTER    II 

The   Boy 


The    Boy 


IHE  trail  of  the  Boy  was  al- 
ways entirely  distinct,  but 
on  this  especial  morning  it 
lay  over  house,  porch,  barn 
— everything.  The  Mother 
followed  it  up,  stooping  to 
gather  the  miscellany  of  boyish  belongings 
into  her  apron.  She  had  a  delightful  scheme 
in  her  mind  for  clearing  everything  up.  She 
wanted  to  see  how  it  would  seem,  for  once, 
not  to  have  any  litter  of  whittlings,  of  strings 
and  marbles  and  tops!  No  litter  of  beloved 
birds'  eggs,  snake -skins,  turtle-shells!  No 
trail  of  the  Boy  anywhere. 

It  had  taken  the  whole  family  to  get  the 
Boy  off,  but  now  he  was  gone.  Even  yet 
the  haze  of  dust  the  stage-coach  had  stirred 


21 


The  Very  Small  Person 

up  from  the  dry  roadway  lingered  like  a  faint 
blur  on  the  landscape.  It  could  not  be  ten 
minutes  since  they  had  bidden  the  Boy  his 
first  good-bye.  The  Mother  smiled  softly. 

"But  I  did  it!"  she  murmured.  "Of 
course, — I  had  to.  The  idea  of  letting  your 
Boy  go  off  without  kissing  him  good-bye! 
Mary,"  she  suddenly  spoke  aloud,  addressing 
the  Patient  Aunt,  who  was  following  the  trail 
too,  picking  up  the  sif tings  from  the  other's 
apron — "Mary,  did  you  kiss  him?  There 
was  really  no  need,  you  know,  because  you 
are  not  his  mother.  And  it  would  have 
saved  his  feelings  not  to." 

The  Patient  Aunt  laughed.  She  was  very 
young  and  pretty,  and  the  "patient"  in  her 
name  had  to  do  only  with  her  manner  of 
bearing  the  Boy. 

"No,  I  didn't,"  she  said.  "I  didn't  dare 
to,  after  I  saw  him  wipe  yours  off!" 

"Mary!" 

"With  the  back  of  his  hand.  I  am  not 
near-sighted.  Now  why  should  a  well-mean- 
ing little  kiss  distress  a  Boy  like  that? 
That's  what  I  want  to  know." 

22 


The  Boy 

"It  didn't  once,"  sighed  the  Mother, 
gently.  "Not  when  he  was  a  baby.  I'm 
glad  I  got  in  a  great  many  of  them  then, 
while  I  had  a  chance.  It  was  the  trousers 
that  did  it,  Mary.  From  the  minute  he  put 
on  trousers  he  objected  to  being  kissed.  I 
put  his  kilts  on  again  one  day,  and  he  let 
me  kiss  him." 

"But  it  was  a  bribe  to  get  you  to  take  them 
off,"  laughed  the  Patient  Aunt,  wickedly. 
"I  remember; — I  was  there.  And  you  took 
them  off  to  pay  for  that  kiss.  You  can't 
deny  it,  Bess." 

"Yes,  I  took  them  off — and  after  that  I 
kissed  them.  It  was  next  best.  Mary,  does 
it  seem  very  awful  quiet  here  to  you?" 

"Awful.  I  never  heard  anything  like  it  in 
my  life.  I'm  going  to  let  something  drop 
and  make  a  noise."  She  dropped  a  tin 
trumpet,  but  it  fell  on  the  thick  rug,  and 
they  scarcely  heard  it. 

The  front  gate  clicked  softly,  and  the 
Father  came  striding  up  the  walk,  whistling 
exaggeratedly.  He  had  ridden  down  to  the 
corner  with  the  Boy. 

23 


The  Very  Small  Person 

"Well,  well,  well,"  he  said;  "now  I  shall 
go  to  work.  I'm  going  up  to  my  den,  girls, 
and  I  don't  want  to  be  called  away  for  any- 
thing or  anybody  lower  than  a  President  or 
the  minister.  This  is  my  first  good  chance 
to  work  for  ten  years." 

Which  showed  how  old  the  Boy  was.  He 
was  rather  young  to  go  off  alone  on  a  journey, 
but  a  neighbor  half  a  mile  down  the  glary 
white  road  was  going  his  way,  and  would 
take  him  in  charge.  The  neighbor  was  lame, 
and  the  Boy  thought  he  was  going  to  take 
charge  of  the  neighbor.  It  was  as  well. 
Nobody  had  undeceived  him. 

In  a  little  over  half  an  hour — three-quar- 
ters at  most — the  trail  of  the  Boy  was  wiped 
out.  Then  the  Patient  Aunt  and  the  Mother 
sat  down  peacefully  and  undisturbed  to  their 
sewing.  Everything  was  very  spruce  and 
cleared  up.  The  Mother  was  thinking  of 
that,  and  of  how  very,  very  still  it  was.  She 
wished  the  Patient  Aunt  would  begin  to  sing, 
or  a  door  would  slam  somewhere. 

"Dear  me!"  she  thought,  with  a  tremu- 
lous little  smile,  "here  I  am  wanting  to  hear 
24 


The  Boy 

a  door  slam  already!  Any  one  wouldn't 
think  I'd  had  a  special  set  of  door  nerves  for 
years!"  She  started  in  to  rock  briskly. 
There  used  to  be  a  board  that  creaked  by 
the  west  window.  Why  didn't  it  creak  now  ? 
The  Mother  tried  to  make  it. 

"Mary,"  she  cried,  suddenly  and  sharply 
— "Mary!" 

"Mercy!  Well,  what  is  it,  my  dear?  Is 
the  house  afire,  or  anything?" 

"Why  don't  you  talk,  and  not  sit  there  as 
still  as  a  post?  You  haven't  said  a  word 
for  half  an  hour." 

"Why,  so  I  haven't, — or  you  either,  for 
that  matter.  I  thought  we  were  sitting  here 
enjoying  the  calm.  Doesn't  it  look  too 
lovely  and  fixed  -  up  for  anything,  Bess  ? 
Seems  like  Sunday.  Don't  you  wish  some- 
body would  call  before  we  get  stirred  up 
again." 

"There's  time  enough.  We  sha'n't  get 
stirred  up  again  for  a  week,"  sighed  the 
Mother.  She  seemed  suddenly  to  remem- 
ber, as  a  new  thing,  that  weeks  held  seven 
days  apiece;  days,  twenty-four  hours.  The 
25 


The  Very  Small  Person 

little  old  table  at  school  repeated  itself  to  her 
mind.  Then  she  remembered  how  the  Boy 
said  it.  She  saw  him  toeing  the  stripe  in 
the  carpet  before  her;  she  heard  his  high 
sweet  sing-song: 

"Sixty  sec-unds  make  a  min-it.  Sixty 
min-its  make  a  nour.  Sixty  hours  make — 
no ;  I  mean  twenty  -  four  hours  —  make  a 
d-a-a-y." 

That  was  the  way  the  Boy  said  it — God 
bless  the  Boy!  The  Mother  got  up  abruptly. 

"  I  think  I  will  go  up  and  call  on  William," 
she  said,  unsteadily.  The  Patient  Aunt 
nodded  gravely.  "But  he  doesn't  like  to 
be  interrupted,  you  know,"  she  reminded, 
thinking  of  the  Boy's  interruptions. 

Up -stairs  the  Father  said  "Come  in," 
with  remarkable  alacrity.  He  looked  up 
from  his  manuscripts  and  welcomed  her. 
The  sheets,  tossed  untidily  about  the  table 
were  mostly  blank  ones. 

"Well,  dear?"  the  little  Mother  said,  with 
a  question  in  her  voice. 

"Not  at  all; — bad,"  he  answered,  gloom- 
ily. "I  haven't  written  a  word  yet,  Bess. 
26 


The  Boy 

At  this  rate,  how  soon  will  my  new  book  be 
out?  It's  so  confoundedly  still— 

"Yes,  dear,  I  know,"  the  Mother  said, 
hastily.  Then  they  both  gazed  out  of  the 
window,  and  saw  the  Boy's  little,  rough- 
coated,  ugly  dog  moping  under  the  Boy's 
best -beloved  tree.  The  Boy  had  pleaded 
hard  to  be  allowed  to  take  the  dog  on  the 
journey.  They  both  remembered  that  now. 

"He's  lonesome,"  murmured  the  Mother, 
but  she  meant  that  they  two  were.  And 
they  had  thought  it  would  be  such  a  rest 
and  relief!  But  then,  you  remember,  the 
Boy  had  never  been  away  before,  and  he 
was  only  ten. 

So  one  day  and  one  more  after  it  dragged 
by.  Two  from  seven  leaves  five.  The 
Mother  secretly  despaired.  The  second  night, 
after  the  others  were  asleep,  she  stole  around 
the  house  and  strewed  the  Boy's  things 
about  in  all  the  rooms;  but  she  could  not 
make  them  look  at  ease.  Nevertheless,  she 
let  them  lie,  and,  oddly  enough,  no  one 
appeared  to  see  them  next  morning.  All 
the  family  made  fine  pretence  of  being 
27 


The  Very  Small   Person 

cheerful,  and  spoke  often  of  the  quietude 
and  peace — how  restful  it  was;  how  they 
had  known  beforehand  that  it  would  be  so, 
without  the  whooping,  whistling,  tramping, 
slamming  Boy. 

"So  relieving  to  the  nerves,"  the  Patient 
Aunt  said. 

' '  So  soothing, ' '  murmured  the  Mother,  sadly. 

"So  confoundedly  nice  and  still!"  the 
Father  muttered  in  his  beard.  "Haven't 
had  such  a  chance  to  work  for  ten  years." 
But  he  did  not  work.  The  third  day  he 
said  he  must  take  a  little  run  to  the  city 
to — to  see  his  publishers,  you  know.  There 
were  things  that  needed  looking  after; — if 
the  Mother  would  toss  a  few  things  into  his 
grip,  he'd  be  off; — back  in  a  few  days,  of 
course.  And  so  he  went.  It  was  a  relief  to 
the  Mother,  and  a  still  further  one  when,  on 
the  fourth  day,  the  Patient  Aunt  went  away 
on  a  little  visit  to — to  some  friends. 

"I'm  glad  they're  gone,"  nodded  the  little 

Mother,    decisively,    "for    I    couldn't    have 

stood  it  another  day — not  another  day  !     Now 

I'm  going  away  myself.     I  suppose  I  should 

28 


The  Boy 

have  gone  anyway,  but  it's  much  pleasanter 
not  to  have  them  know.  They  would  both 
of  them  have  laughed.  What  do  they  know 
about  being  a  Mother  and  having  your  little 
Boy  away  ?  Oh  yes,  they  can  laugh  and  be 
relieved  —  and  rested  —  and  soothed!  It's 
mothers  whose  hearts  break  with  lonesome- 
ness — mothers  and  ugly  little  dogs."  She 
took  the  moping  little  beast  up  in  her  lap 
and  stroked  his  rough  coat. 

' '  You  shall  go  too, ' '  she  whispered.  ' '  You 
can't  wait  three  days  more,  either,  can  you  ? 
It  would  have  killed  you,  too,  wouldn't  it? 
We  are  glad  those  other  people  went  away, 
aren't  we?  Now  we'll  go  to  the  Boy." 

Early  the  next  morning  they  went.  The 
Mother  thought  she  had  never  been  so  happy 
before  in  her  life,  and  the  ugly  little  beast 
yelped  with  anticipative  joy.  In  a  little — a 
very  little — while,  now,  they  would  hear  the 
Boy  shout — see  him  caper — feel  his  hard 
little  palms  on  their  faces.  They  would  see 
the  trail  of  the  Boy  over  everything;  not  a 
make-believe,  made-up  trail,  but  the  real, 
littered,  Boy  thing. 

29 


The  Very  Small  Person 

"I  hope  those  other  two  people  are  enjoy- 
ing their  trips.  We  are,  aren't  we?"  cried 
the  happy  Mother,  hugging  the  little  ugly 
dog  in  her  arms.  "And  they  won't  know; 
— they  can't  laugh  at  us.  We'll  never  let 
them  know  we  couldn't  bear  it  another 
minute,  will  we?  The  Boy  sha'n't  tell  on 
us." 

The  place  where  the  Boy  was  visiting  was 
quite  a  long  way  from  the  railroad  station, 
but  they  trudged  to  it  gayly,  jubilantly. 
While  yet  a  good  way  off  they  heard  the 
Boy  and  came  upon  his  trail.  The  little  dog 
nearly  went  into  fits  with  frantic  joy  at  the 
cap  he  found  in  the  path,  but  the  Mother 
went  straight  on  to  meet  the  little  shouting 
voice  in  her  ears.  Half-way  to  it  she  saw 
the  Boy.  But  wait.  Who  was  that  with 
him?  And  that  other  one,  laughing  in  his 
beard?  If  there  had  been  time  to  be  sur- 
prised— but  she  only  brushed  them  both 
aside  and  caught  up  the  Boy.  The  Boy — 
the  Boy — the  Boy  again !  She  kissed  him  all 
over  his  freckled,  round  little  face.  She 
kissed  his  hair  and  his  hands  and  his  knees. 
30 


The  Boy 

"Look  out;  he's  wiping  them  off!"  laugh- 
ed the  Patient  Aunt.  "  But  you  see  he  didn't 
wipe  mine  off." 

"  You  didn't  kiss  me.  You  darsn't.  You 
ain't  my  mother,"  panted  the  Boy,  between 
the  kisses.  He  could  not  keep  up  with  them 
with  the  back  of  his  brown  little  hand. 

"But  I  am,  dear.  I'm  your  mother," 
cooed  the  Mother,  proud  of  herself. 

After  a  while  she  let  him  go  because  she 
pitied  him.  Then  she  stood  up,  stern  and 
straight,  and  demanded  things  of  these  other 
two. 

"How  came  you  here,  Mary?  I  thought 
you  were  going  on  a  visit.  Is  this  the  way 
you  see  your  publishers,  William?" 

"I — I  couldn't  wait,"  murmured  the  Impa- 
tient Aunt.  "I  wanted  to  hear  him  shout. 
You  know  how  that  is,  Bess."  But  there 
was  no  apology  in  the  Father's  tone.  He 
put  out  his  hand  and  caught  the  Boy  as  he 
darted  past,  and  squared  him  about,  with 
his  sturdy  little  front  to  his  mother.  The 
Father  was  smiling  in  a  tender  way. 

"He  is  my  publisher,"  he  said.  "I  would 
31 


The  Very  Small  Person 

rather  he  published  my  best  works  than  any 
one  else.  He  will  pay  the  highest  royalty." 

And  the  Mother,  when  she  slipped  across 
to  them,  kissed  not  the  Boy  alone,  but  them 
both. 

The  next  day  they  took  the  Boy  back  in 
triumph,  the  three  of  them  and  the  little 
dog,  and  after  that  there  was  litter  and  noise 
and  joy  as  of  old. 


CHAPTER    III 

The   Adopted 


The   Adopted 


[HE  Enemy's  chin  just  reach- 
ed comfortably  to  the  top 
fence-rail,  and  there  it  rest- 
ed, while  above  it  peered  a 
pair  of  round  blue  eyes.  It 
is  not  usual  for  an  enemy's 
eyes  to  be  so  round  and  blue,  nor  an  enemy's 
chin  to  reach  so  short  a  distance  from  the 
ground. 

"She's  watching  me,"  Margaret  thought; 
"she  wants  to  see  if  I've  got  far  as  she  has. 
'Fore  I'd  lean  my  chin  on  folks's  gates  and 
watch  'em!" 

"She    knows    I'm    here,"    reflected    the 
Enemy,   "just  as  well  as  anything.     'Fore 
I'd  peek  at  people  out  o'  the  ends  o'  my 
eyes!" 
4  35 


The  Very  Small   Person 

Between  the  two,  a  little  higher  than 
their  heads,  tilted  a  motherly  bird  on  a 
syringa  twig. 

"Ter-wit,  ter-wee,  —  pit-ee,  pit-ee!"  she 
twittered  under  her  breath.  And  it  did  seem 
a  pity  to  be  quarrellers  on  a  day  in  May,  with 
the  apple  buds  turning  as  pink  as  pink! 

"I  sha'n't  ever  tell  her  any  more  secrets," 
Margaret  mused,  rather  sadly,  for  there  was 
that  beautiful  new  one  aching  to  be  told. 

"I  sha'n't  ever  skip  with  her  again,"  the 
Enemy's  musings  ran  drearily,  and  the  arm 
she  had  always  put  round  Margaret  when 
they  skipped  felt  lonesome  and — and  empty. 
And  there  was  that  lovely  new  level  place  to 
skip  in! 

' '  Pit-ee !  Pit-ee ! ' '  sang  softly  the  motherly 
bird. 

It  had  only  been  going  on  a  week  of  seven 
days.  It  was  exactly  a  week  ago  to-day  it 
began,  while  they  were  making  the  birthday 
presents  together,  Margaret  sitting  in  this 
very  chair  and  Nell — the  Enemy — sitting 
on  the  toppest  door-step.  Who  wTould  have 
thought  it  was  coming  ?  There  was  nothing 
36 


KORE  1  D  LEAN  MY  CHIN  ON  FOLKS  S  GATES  AND  WATCH 
'EM''  " 


The  Adopted 

to  warn — no  thunder  in  the  sky,  no  little 
mother-bird  on  the  syringa  bush.  It  just 
came — oh,  hum! 

"I'm  ahead!"  the  Enemy  had  suddenly 
announced,  waving  her  book  -  mark.  She 
had  got  to  the  "h"  in  her  Mother,  and  Mar- 
garet was  only  finishing  her  capital  "M." 
They  were  both  working  ' '  Honor  thy  Mother 
that  thy  days  may  be  long,"  on  strips  of  card- 
board for  their  mothers'  birthdays,  which, 
oddly  enough,  came  very  close  together.  Of 
course  that  wasn't  exactly  the  way  it  was  in 
the  Bible,  but  they  had  agreed  it  was  better 
to  leave  "thy  Father"  out  because  it  wasn't 
his  birthday,  and  they  had  left  out  "the 
land  which  the  Lord  thy  God  giveth"  be- 
cause there  wasn't  room  for  it  on  the  card- 
board. 

"I'm  ahead!" 

"That's  because  I'm  doing  mine  the  care- 
fulest,"  Margaret  had  retorted,  promptly. 
"There  aren't  near  so  many  hunchy  places 
in  mine." 

"Well,  I  don't  care;  my  mother's  the  best- 
looking,  if  her  book-mark  isn't!"  in  triumph. 
37 


The  Very  Small  Person 

"Her  hair  curls,  and  she  doesn't  have  to 
wear  glasses." 

Margaret's  wrath  had  flamed  up  hotly. 
Mother's  eyes  were  so  shiny  and  tender  be- 
hind the  glasses,  and  her  smooth  brown  hair 
was  so  soft!  The  love  in  Margaret's  soul 
arose  and  took  up  arms  for  Mother. 

"I  love  mine  the  best,  so  there! — so  there! 
— so  there!"  she  cried.  But  side  by  side 
with  the  love  in  her  soul  was  the  secret  con- 
sciousness of  how  very  much  the  Enemy 
loved  her  mother,  too.  Now,  sitting  sewing 
all  alone,  with  the  Enemy  on  the  other  side 
of  the  fence,  Margaret  knew  she  had  not 
spoken  truly  then,  but  the  rankling  taunt  of 
the  curls  that  Mother  hadn't,  and  the  glasses 
that  she  had,  justified  her  to  herself.  She 
would  never,  never  take  it  back,  so  there! — 
so  there! — so  there! 

"She's  only  got  to  the  end  o'  her  'days,' — 
I  can  see  clear  from  here,"  soliloquized  the 
Enemy,  with  awakening  exultation.  For  the 
Enemy's  "days"  were  "long," — she  had  fin- 
ished her  book-mark.  The  longing  to  shout 
it  out — "I've  got  mine  done!" — was  so  in- 
38 


The  Adopted 

tense  within  her  that  her  chin  lost  its  bal- 
ance on  the  fence-rail  and  she  jarred  down 
heavily  on  her  heels.  So  close  related  are 
mind  and  matter. 

Margaret  resorted  to  philosophic  contem- 
plation to  shut  out  the  memory  of  the  silent 
on-looker  at  the  fence.  She  had  swung  about 
discourteously  "back  to"  her.  "I  guess," 
contemplated  Margaret,  "my  days  '11  be  long 
enough  in  the  land!  I  guess  so,  for  I  honor 
my  mother  enough  to  live  forever!  That 
makes  me  think — I  guess  I  better  go  in  and 
kiss  her  good -night  for  to-night  when  she 
won't  be  at  home." 

It  was  mid-May  and  school  was  nearly 
over.  The  long  summer  vacation  stretched 
endlessly,  lonesomely,  ahead  of  Margaret. 
Last  summer  it  had  been  so  different.  A 
summer  vacation  with  a  friend  right  close 
to  you  all  the  time,  skipping  with  you  and 
keeping  house  with  you  and  telling  all  her 
secrets  to  you,  is  about  as  far  away  as — as 
China  is  from  an  Enemy  'cross  the  fence! 
Oh,  hum!  some  vacations  are  so  splendid 
and  some  are  so  un-splendid! 
39 


The  Very  Small   Person 

It  did  not  seem  possible  that  anything 
drearier  than  this  could  happen.  Margaret 
would  not  have  dreamed  it  possible.  But  a 
little  way  farther  down  Lonesome  Road 
waited  something  a  great  deal  worse.  It 
was  waiting  for  Margaret  behind  the  school- 
house  stone  -  wall.  The  very  next  day  it 
jumped  out  upon  her. 

Usually  at  recess  Nell — the  Enemy — and 
Margaret  had  gone  wandering  away  together 
with  their  arms  around  each  other's  waist, 
as  happy  as  anything.  But  for  a  week  of 
recesses  now  they  had  gone  wandering  in 
opposite  directions — the  Enemy  marching 
due  east,  Margaret  due  west.  The  stone-wall 
stretched  away  to  the  west.  She  had  found 
a  nice  lonesome  little  place  to  huddle  in, 
behind  the  wall,  out  of  sight.  It  was  just 
the  place  to  be  miserable  in. 

"  I  know  something!" — from  one  of  a  little 
group  of  gossipers  on  the  outside  of  the  wall. 
"She  needn't  stick  her  chin  out  an'  not  come 
an'  play  with  us.  She's  nothing  but  an 
adopted!" 

"Oh! — a  what?"  in  awestruck  chorus 
40 


The  Adopted 

from  the  listeners.  "Say  it  again,  Rhody 
Sharp." 

"An  adopted — that's  all  she  is.  I  guess 
nobody  but  an  adopted  need  to  go  trampin' 
past  when  we  invite  her  to  play  with  us!  I 
guess  we're  good  as  she  is  an'  better,  too,  so 
there!" 

Margaret  in  her  hidden  nook  heard  with  a 
cold  terror  creeping  over  her  and  settling 
around  her  heart.  It  was  so  close  now  that 
she  breathed  with  difficulty.  If — supposing 
they  meant — 

"Rhody  Sharp,  you're  fibbing!  I  don't 
believe  a  single  word  you  say!"  sprang  forth 
a  champion  valiantly.  "She's  dreadfully 
fond  of  her  mother — just  dreadfully  /" 

"She  doesn't  know  it,"  promptly  returned 
Rhody  Sharp,  her  voice  stabbing  poor 
Margaret's  ear  like  a  sharp  little  sword. 
"They're  keeping  it  from  her.  My  gran'- 
mother  doesn't  believe  they'd  ought  to. 
She  says — " 

But  nobody  cared  what  Rhody  Sharp's 
gran 'mother  said.  A  clatter  of  shocked  little 
voices  burst  forth  into  excited,  pitying  dis- 
41 


The  Very  Small   Person 

cussion  of  the  unfortunate  who  was  nothing 
but  an  adopted.  One  of  their  own  number! 
One  they  spelled  with  and  multiplied  with 
and  said  the  capitals  with  every  day!  That 
they  had  invited  to  come  and  play  with  them 
— an'  she'd  stuck  her  chin  out! 

"Why!  Why,  then  she's  a — orphan!"  one 
voice  exclaimed.  ''Really  an'  honest  she  is 
— an*  she  doesn't  know  it!" 

"Oh,  my,  isn't  it  awful!"  another  voice. 
"Shouldn't  you  think  she'd  hide  her  head — 
I  mean,  if  she  knew?" 

It  was  already  hidden.  Deep  down  in  the 
sweet,  moist  grass — a  little  heavy,  uncrown- 
ed, terror-smitten  head.  The  cruel  voices 
kept  on. 

"  It's  just  like  a  disgrace,  isn't  it  ?  Should- 
n't you  s'pose  it  would  feel  that  way  if  'twas 
you?" 

"Think  o'  kissin'  your  mother  good-night 
an'  it's  not  bein'  your  mother?" 

"Say,  Rhody  Sharp  —  all  o'  you  —  look 

here!     Do    you    suppose    that's    why    her 

mother — I  mean  she  that  isn't — dresses  her 

in  checked  aperns  ?    That's  what  orphans — " 

42 


The  Adopted 

The  shorn  head  dug  deeper.  A  soft  groan 
escaped  Margaret's  lips.  This  very  minute, 
now  while  she  crouched  in  the  grass, — oh,  if 
she  put  out  her  hands  and  felt  she  would 
feel  the  checks!  She  had  been  to  an  orph — 
to  a  place  once  with  Moth  —  with  Her  and 
seen  the  aprons  herself.  They  were  all — all 
checked. 

At  home,  folded  in  a  beautiful  pile,  there 
were  all  the  others.  There  was  the  pink- 
checked  one  and  the  brown-checked  one  and 
the  prettiest  one  of  all,  the  one  with  teenty 
little  white  checks  marked  off  with  buff. 
The  one  she  should  feel  if  she  put  out  her 
hand  was  a  blue-checked. 

Margaret  drove  her  hands  deep  into  the 
matted  grass;  she  would  not  put  them  out. 
It  was — it  was  terrible !  Now  she  understood 
it  all.  She  remembered  —  things.  They 
crowded — with  capital  T's,  Things, — up  to 
her  and  pointed  their  fingers  at  her,  and 
smiled  dreadful  smiles  at  her,  and  whispered 
to  one  another  about  her.  They  sat  down  on 
her  and  jounced  up  and  down,  till  she  gasped 
for  breath. 

43 


The  Very  Small   Person 

The  teacher's  bell  rang  crisply  and  the 
voices  changed  to  scampering  feet.  But 
Margaret  crouched  on  in  the  sweet,  moist 
grass  behind  the  wall.  She  stayed  there  a 
week — a  month — a  year, — or  was  it  only  till 
the  night  chill  stole  into  her  bones  and  she 
crept  away  home  ? 

She  and  Nell — she  and  the  Enemy — had 
been  so  proud  to  have  aprons  just  alike  and 
cut  by  the  same  dainty  pattern.  But  now 
if  she  knew — if  the  Enemy  knew!  How 
ashamed  it  would  make  her  to  have  on  one 
like — like  an  adopted's!  How  she'd  wish 
her's  was  stripes!  Perhaps — oh,  perhaps  she 
would  think  it  was  fortunate  that  she  was  an 
enemy  now. 

But  the  worst  Things  that  crowded  up 
and  scoffed  and  gibed  were  not  Things  that 
had  to  do  with  enemies.  The  worst-of-all 
Things  had  to  do  with  a  little,  tender  woman 
with  glasses  on  —  whose  hair  didn't  curl. 
Those  Things  broke  Margaret's  heart. 

' '  Now  you  know  why  She  makes  you  make 
the  bed  over  again  when  it's  wrinkly,"  gibed 
one  Thing. 

44 


SHE    STAYED    THERE    A    WEEK A    MONTH A     YEAR 


The  Adopted 

"And  why  she  makes  you  mend  the  holes 
in  your  stockings,"  another  Thing. 

"She  doesn't  make  me  do  the  biggest 
ones!"  flashed  Margaret,  hotly,  but  she  could 
not  stem  the  tide  of  Things.  It  swirled  in. 

"Perhaps  now  you  see  why  She  makes 
you  hem  towels  and  wipe  dishes — " 

"And  won't  let  you  eat  two  pieces  of 
pie-" 

"Or  one  piece  o'  fruit-cake — " 

"Maybe  you  remember  now  the  times 
she's  said,  'This  is  no  little  daughter  of 
mine'?" 

Margaret  turned  sharply.  "  That  was  only 
because  I  was  naughty,"  she  pleaded,  strick- 
enly,  but  she  knew  in  her  soul  it  wasn't 
"only  because."  She  knew  it  was  because. 
The  terror  within  her  was  growing  more  ter- 
rible every  moment. 

Then  came  shame.  Like  the  evilest  of  the 
evil  Things  it  had  been  lurking  in  the  back- 
ground waiting  its  turn, — it  was  its  turn  now. 
Margaret  stood  quite  still,  ashamed.  She 
could  not  name  the  strange  feeling,  for  she 
had  never  been  ashamed  before,  but  she  sat 
45 


The  Very  Small   Person 

there  a  piteous  little  figure  in  the  grip  of  it. 
It  was  awful  to  be  only  nine  and  feel  like 
that!  To  shrink  from  going  home  past  Mrs. 
Streeter's  and  the  minister's  and  the  Enemy's! 
— oh,  most  of  all  past  the  Enemy's! — for  fear 
they'd  look  out  of  the  window  and  say, 
"There  goes  an  adopted!"  Perhaps  they'd 
point  their  fingers. — Margaret  closed  her  eyes 
dizzily  and  saw  Mrs.  Streeter's  plump  one 
and  the  minister's  lean  one  and  the  Enemy's 
short  brown  one,  all  pointing.  She  could 
feel  something  burning  her  on  her  forehead, 
— it  was  "Adopted,"  branded  there. 

The  Enemy  was  worst.  Margaret  crept 
under  the  fence  just  before  she  got  to  the 
Enemy's  house  and  went  a  weary,  round- 
about way  home.  She  could  not  bear  to 
have  this  dearest  Enemy  see  her  in  her 
disgrace. 

Moth  —  She  That  Had  Been  —  would  be 
wondering  why  Margaret  was  late.  If  she 
looked  sober  out  of  her  eyes  and  said,  "This 
can't  be  my  little  girl,  can  it?"  then  Mar- 
garet would  know  for  certain.  That  would 
be  the  final  proof. 

46 


The  Adopted 

The  chimney  was  in  sight  now, — now  the 
roof, — now  the  kitchen  door,  and  She  That 
Had  Been  was  in  it!  She  was  shading  her 
eyes  and  looking  for  the  little  girl  that 
wasn't  hers.  A  sob  rose  in  the  little  girl's 
throat,  but  she  tramped  steadily  on.  It  did 
not  occur  to  her  to  snatch  off  her  hat  and 
wave  it,  as  little  girls  that  belonged  did. 
She  had  done  it  herself. 

The  kitchen  door  was  very  near  indeed 
now.  It  did  not  seem  to  be  Margaret  that 
was  moving,  but  the  kitchen  door.  It  seem- 
ed to  be  coming  to  meet  her  and  bringing 
with  it  a  dear  slender  figure.  She  looked  up 
and  saw  the  soberness  in  its  dear  eyes. 

"This  can't  be  my  little  girl,  can — "  but 
Margaret  heard  no  more.  With  a  muffled 
wail  she  fled  past  the  slender  figure,  up- 
stairs, that  she  did  not  see  at  all,  to  her  own 
little  room.  On  the  bed  she  lay  and  felt  her 
heart  break  under  her  awful  little  checked 
apron.  For  now  she  knew  for  certain. 

Two  darknesses  shut  down  about  her,  and 
in  the  heart-break  of  one  she  forgot  to  be 
afraid  of  the  other.  She  had  always  before 
47 


The  Very  Small   Person 

been  afraid  of  the  night-dark  and  imagined 
creepy  steps  coming  along  the  hall  and  into 
the  door.  The  things  she  imagined  now  were 
dreadfuler  than  that.  This  new  dark  was  so 
much  darker! 

They  thought  she  was  asleep  and  let  her 
lie  there  on  her  little  bed  alone.  By-and-by 
would  be  time  enough  to  probe  gently  for  the 
childish  trouble.  Perhaps  she  would  leave 
it  behind  her  in  her  sleep. 

Out-of-doors  suddenly  a  new  sound  rose 
shrill  above  the  crickets  and  the  frogs.  It 
was  the  Enemy  singing  "Glory,  glory,  halle- 
lujah." That  was  the  last  straw.  Margaret 
writhed  deeper  into  the  pillows.  She  knew 
what  the  rest  of  it  was — "Glory,  glory,  halle- 
lujah, 'tisn't  me!  My  soul  goes  march- 
ing on!"  She  was  out  there  singing  that 
a-purpose! 

In  her  desperate  need  for  some  one  to  lay 
her  trouble  to,  Margaret  "laid  it  to"  the 
Enemy.  A  sudden,  bitter,  unreasoning  re- 
sentment took  possession  of  her.  If  there 
hadn't  been  an  Enemy,  there  wouldn't  have 
been  a  trouble.  Everything  would  have 
48 


The  Adopted 

been  beautiful  and — and  respectable,  just  as 
it  was  before.  She  would  have  been  out 
there  singing  "  Glory,  glory  hallelujah," 
too. 

"She's  to  blame — I  hate  her!"  came  muf- 
fledly  from  the  pillows.  "Oh,  I  do! — I  can't 
help  it,  I  do!  I'm  always  going  to  hate  her 
forevermore!  She  needn't  have — " 

Needn't  have  what?  What  had  the  little 
scape -goat  out  there  in  the  twilight  done? 
But  Margaret  was  beyond  reasoning  now. 
"Mine  enemy  hath  done  it,"  was  enough  for 
her.  If  she  lived  a  thousand  years — if  she 
lived  two  thousand — she  would  never  speak 
to  the  Enemy  again, — never  forgive  her, — 
never  put  her  into  her  prayer  again  among 
the  God  blesses. 

A  plan  formulated  itself  after  a  while  in 
the  dark  little  room.  It  was  born  of  the 
travail  of  the  child's  soul.  Something  must 
be  done — there  was  something  she  would  do. 
She  began  it  at  once,  huddled  up  against  the 
window  to  catch  the  failing  light.  She  would 
pin  it  to  her  pin-cushion  where  they  would 
find  it  after — after  she  was  gone.  Did  folks 
49 


The  Very  Small  Person 

ever  mourn  for  an  Adopted?    In  her  sore 
heart  Margaret  yearned  to  have  them  mourn. 

"I  have  found  it  out,"  she  wrote  with  her 
trembling  little  fingers.  "I  don't  supose  its  wick- 
ed becaus  I  couldent  help  being  one  but  it  is 
orful.  It  breaks  your  hart  to  find  youre  one  all 
of  a  suddin.  If  I  had  known  before,  I  would  have 
darned  the  big  holes  too.  Ime  going  away  becaus 
I  canot  bare  living  with  folks  I  havent  any  right 
to.  The  stik  pin  this  is  pined  on  with  is  for  Her 
That  Wasent  Ever  my  Mother  for  I  love  her  still. 
When  this  you  see  remember  me  the  rose  is  red  the 
violet  blue  sugger  is  sweet  and  so  are  you. 

"  MARGARET." 

She  pinned  it  on  tremblingly  and  then 
crept  back  to  bed.  Perhaps  she  went  to 
sleep, — at  any  rate,  quite  suddenly  there  were 
voices  at  her  door — Her  voice  and — His.  She 
did  not  stir,  but  lay  and  listened  to  them. 

"Dear  child!  Wouldn't  you  wake  her  up, 
Henry?  What  do  you  suppose  could  have 
happened?"  That  was  the  voice  that  used 
to  be  Mother's.  It  made  Margaret  feel 
thrilly  and  homesick. 

"Something  at  school,  probably,  dear, — 
you  mustn't  worry.  All  sorts  of  little 


The  Adopted 

troubles  happen  at  school."  The  voice  that 
used  to  be  her  Father's. 

"I  know,  but  this  must  have  been  a  big 
one.  If  you  had  seen  her  little  face,  Henry! 
If  she  were  Nelly,  I  should  think  somebody 
had  been  telling  her — about  her  origin,  you 
know — " 

Margaret  held  her  breath.  Nelly  was  the 
Enemy,  but  what  was  an  origin  ?  This  thing 
that  they  were  saying — hark? 

"I've  always  expected  Nelly  to  find  out 
that  way — it  would  be  so  much  kinder  to 
tell  her  at  home.  You  know  it  would, 
Henry,  instead  of  letting  her  hear  it  from 
strangers  and  get  her  poor  little  heart 
broken.  Henry,  if  God  hadn't  given  us  a 
precious  little  child  of  our  own  and  we  had 
ever  adopted — " 

Margaret  dashed  off  the  quilts  and  leaped 
to  the  floor  with  a  cry  of  ecstasy.  The 
anguish — the  shame — the  cruel  gibing  Things 
— were  left  behind  her;  they  had  slid  from 
her  burdened  little  heart  at  the  first  glorious 
rush  of  understanding;  they  would  never 
come  back, — never  come  back, — never  come 


The  Very  Small   Person 

back  to  Margaret!     Glory,  glory,  hallelujah, 
'twasn't  her!     Her  soul  went  marching  on! 

The  two  at  the  door  suffered  an  unexpect- 
ed, an  amazing  onslaught  from  a  flying  little 
figure.  Its  arms  were  out,  were  gathering 
them  both  in, — were  strangling  them  in  wild, 
exultant  hugs. 

"Oh!  Oh,  you're  mine!  I'm  yours!  We're 
each  others!  I'm  not  an  Adopted  any  more! 
I  thought  I  was,  and  I  wasn't!  I  was  going 
away  and  die — oh,  oh,  oh!" 

Then  Margaret  remembered  the  Enemy, 
and  in  the  throes  of  her  pity  the  enmity  was 
swallowed  up  forever.  The  instant  yearning 
that  welled  up  in  her  to  put  her  arms  around 
the  poor  real  Adopted  almost  stifled  her. 
She  slid  out  of  the  two  pairs  of  big  tender 
arms  and  scurried  away  like  a  hare.  She 
was  going  to  find  Nellie  and  love  her — oh, 
love  her  enough  to  make  up!  She  would 
give  her  the  coral  beads  she  had  always  ad- 
mired; she  would  let  her  be  mistress  and 
she'd  be  maid  when  they  kept  house, — she'd 
let  her  have  the  frosting  half  of  all  their  cake 
and  all  the  raisins. 

52 


The  Adopted 

"I'll  let  her  wear  the  spangly  veil  when 
we  dress  up — oh,  poor,  poor  Nelly!"  Mar- 
garet cried  softly  as  she  ran.  "And  the 
longest  trail.  She  may  be  the  richest  and 
have  the  most  children — I'd  rather." 

There  did  not  seem  anything  possible  and 
beloved  that  she  would  not  let  Nelly  do. 
She  took  agitated  little  leaps  through  the 
soft  darkness,  sending  on  ahead  her  yearning 
love  in  a  tender  little  call :  ' '  Nelly !  Nelly ! ' ' 

She  could  never  be  too  tender — too  gener- 
ous— to  Nelly,  to  try  to  make  up.  And  all 
her  life  she  would  take  care  of  her  and  keep 
her  from  finding  out.  She  shouldn't  find 
out!  When  they  were  both,  oh,  very  old, 
she  would  still  be  taking  care  of  Nelly  like 
that. 

"Nelly!     Nelly!" 

If  she  could  only  think  of  some  Great 
Thing  she  could  do,  that  would — would  hurt 
to  do!  And  then  she  thought.  She  stopped 
quite  suddenly  in  her  impetuous  rush,  stilled 
by  the  Greatness  of  it. 

"I'll  let  her  love  her  mother  the  best," 
whispered  Margaret  to  the  stars, — "  so  there!" 
53 


CHAPTER    IV 

Bobby  Unwelcome 


Bobby  Unwelcome 


&OBBY  had  learned  U  that 
day  in  school,  and  he  strut- 
ted home  beside  his  nurse, 
Olga,  with  conscious  reliet 
in  the  swing  of  his  sturdy 
legs.  There  was  a  special 
reason  why  Bobby  felt  relieved  to  get  to  U. 
He  glanced  up,  up,  up,  sidewise,  at  the  non- 
committal face  so  far  above  him,  and  won- 
dered in  his  anxious  little  way  whether  or 
not  it  "would  be  prudent  to  speak  of  the 
special  reason  now.  Olga  had  times,  Bobby 
had  discovered,  when  you  dassent  speak  of 
things,  and  it  looked  —  yes,  cert'nly  —  as 
though  she  was  having  one  now.  Still,  if 
you  only  dast  to — 

"It's  the  same  one  that's  in  the  middle 
57 


The  Very  Small  Person 

o'  my  name,  don't  you  know,"  he  plunged 
in,  hurriedly. 

"Mercy!  What  iss  it  the  child  iss  talk- 
ing about!" 

There!  wasn't  she  having  one?  Didn't 
she  usually  say  "Mercy!"  like  that  when 
she  was? 

"That  letter,  you  know — U.  The  one  in 
the  middle  o'  my  name,"  Bobby  hastened 
on — "right  prezac'ly  in  the  middle  of  it.  I 
wish" — but  he  caught  himself  up  with  a 
jerk.  It  didn't  seem  best,  after  all,  to  con- 
sult Olga  now — not  now,  while  she  was  hav- 
ing one.  Better  wait — only,  dear,  dear,  dear, 
how  long  he  had  waited  a 'ready! 

It  had  not  occurred  to  Bobby  to  consult 
his  mother.  They  two  were  not  intimately 
acquainted,  and  naturally  he  felt  shy. 

Bobby's  mother  was  very  young  and  beau- 
tiful. He  had  seen  her  dressed  in  a  won- 
drous soft  white  dress  once,  with  little 
specks  of  shiny  things  burning  on  her  bare 
throat,  and  ever  since  he  had  known  what 
angels  look  like. 

There  were  reasons  enough  why  Bobby 
58 


Bobby  Unwelcome 

seldom  saw  his  mother.  The  house  was 
very  big,  and  her  room  so  far  away  from  his ; 
— that  was  one  reason.  Then  he  always 
went  to  bed,  and  got  up,  and  ate  his  meals 
before  she  did. 

There  was  another  reason  why  he  and  the 
beautiful  young  mother  did  not  know  each 
other  very  well,  but  even  Olga  had  never 
explained  that  one.  Bobby  had  that  ahead 
of  him  to  find  out, — poor  Bobby!  Some  one 
had  called  him  Fire  Face  once  at  school,  but 
the  kind-hearted  teacher  had  never  let  it 
happen  again. 

At  home,  in  the  great  empty  house,  the 
mirrors  were  all  high  up  out  of  reach,  and 
in  the  nursery  there  had  never  been  any  at 
all.  Bobby  had  never  looked  at  himself  in 
a  mirror.  Of  course  he  had  seen  himself  up 
to  his  chin — dear,  yes — and  admired  his  own 
little  straight  legs  often  enough,  and  doubled 
up  his  little  round  arms  to  hunt  for  his 
"muscle."  In  a  quiet,  unobtrusive  way 
Bobby  was  rather  proud  of  himself.  He  had 
to  be — there  was  no  one  else,  you  see.  And 
even  at  six,  when  there  is  so  little  else  to  do, 
59 


The  Very  Small  Person 

one  can  put  in  considerable  time  regarding 
one's  legs  and  arms. 

"I  guess  you  don't  call  those  bow-legged 
legs,  do  you,  Olga?"  he  had  exulted  once,  in 
an  unguarded  moment  when  he  had  been 
thinking  of  Cleggy  Munro's  legs  at  school. 
"I  guess  you  call  those  pretty  straight-up- 
'n'-down  ones!"  And  the  hard  face  of  the 
old  nurse  had  suddenly  softened  in  a  strange, 
pleasant  way,  and  for  the  one  only  time  that 
he  could  remember,  Olga  had  taken  Bobby 
in  her  arms  and  kissed  him. 

"They're  beautiful  legs,  that  iss  so,"  Olga 
had  said,  but  she  hadn't  been  looking  at 
them  when  she  said  it.  She  had  been  look- 
ing straight  into  his  face.  The  look  hurt, 
too,  Bobby  remembered.  He  did  not  know 
what  pity  was,  but  it  was  that  that  hurt. 

The  night  after  he  learned  U  at  school 
Bobby  decided  to  hazard  everything  and 
ask  Olga  what  the  one  in  his  name  stood  for. 
He  could  not  put  it  off  any  longer. 

"Olga,  what  does  the  U  in  the  middle  o' 
my  name  stand  for  ?"  he  broke  out,  suddenly, 
while  he  was  being  unbuttoned  for  bed.  "I 
60 


Bobby  Unwelcome 

know  it's  a  U,  but  I  don't  know  a  U-what. 
I've  'tided  I  won't  go  to  bed  till  I've  found 
out." 

Things  had  gone  criss-cross.  The  old  Nor- 
wegian woman  was  not  in  a  good  humor. 

"Unwelcome — that  iss  what  it  must  stand 
for,"  she  laughed  unpleasantly. 

"Bobby  Unwelcome!"  Bobby  laughed 
too.  Then  a  piteous  little  suspicion  crept 
into  his  mind  and  began  to  grow.  He 
turned  upon  Olga  sharply.  "What  does 
Unwelcome  mean?"  he  demanded. 

"Eh?  Iss  it  not  enough  plain  to  you? 
Well,  not  wanted  —  that  iss  what  it  means 
then." 

"Not  wanted, — not  wanted."  Bobby  re- 
peated the  words  over  and  over  to  himself, 
not  quite  satisfied  yet.  They  sounded  bad — 
oh,  very;  but  perhaps  Olga  had  got  them 
wrong.  She  was  not  a  United  States  per- 
son. It  would  be  easy  for  another  kind  of 
a  person  to  get  things  wrong.  Still — "not 
wanted" — they  certainly  sounded  very  plain. 
And  they  meant — Bobby  gave  a  faint  gasp, 
and  suddenly  his  thoughts  turned  dizzily 
61 


The  Very  Small  Person 

round  and  round  one  terrible  pivot — "not 
wanted. ' '  He  sprang  away  out  of  the  nurse 's 
hands  and  darted  down  the  long,  bright  hall 
to  his  mother's  room.  She  was  being  dressed 
for  a  ball,  and  the  room  was  pitilessly  light. 
She  sat  at  a  table  with  a  little  mirror  before 
her.  Suddenly  another  face  appeared  in  it 
with  hers — a  little,  scarred,  red  face,  stamped 
deep  with  childish  woe.  The  contrast  ap- 
palled her. 

Bobby  was  not  looking  into  the  glass,  but 
into  her  beautiful  face. 

"Is  that  what  it  stands  for?"  he  demand- 
ed, breathlessly.  "She  said  so.  Did  she 
lie?" 

"Robert!  For  Heaven's  sake,  child,  stand 
away!  You  are  tearing  my  lace.  What  are 
you  doing  here?  Why  are  you  not  in  bed?" 

"Does  it  stand  for  that?1'  he  persisted. 

"Does  what  stand  for  what?  Look,  you 
are  crushing  my  dress.  Stand  farther  off. 
Don't  you  see,  child?" 

"She  said  the  U  in  the  middle  o'  my  name 
stood  for  Not  Wanted.  Does  it?  Tell  me 
quick.  Does  it?" 

62 


Bobby  Unwelcome 

The  contrast  of  the  two  faces  in  her  mirror 
hurt  her  like  a  blow.  It  brought  back  all 
the  disappointment  and  the  wounded  vanity 
of  that  time,  six  years  ago,  when  they  had 
shown  her  the  tiny,  disfigured  face  of  her 
son. 

"No,  it  wasn't  that.  I  morember  now. 
It  was  Unwelcome,  but  it  means  that.  Is 
the  middle  o'  my  name  Unwelcome — what?" 

"Oh  yes,  yes,  yes!"  she  cried,  scarcely 
knowing  what  she  said.  The  boy's  eyes  fol- 
lowed hers  to  the  mirror,  and  in  that  brief, 
awful  space  he  tasted  of  the  Tree  of  Knowl- 
edge. 

With  a  little  cry  he  stumbled  backward 
into  the  lighted  hall.  There  was  a  slip,  and 
the  sound  of  a  soft  little  body  bounding 
down  the  polished  stairs. 

A  good  while  afterwards  Bobby  opened  his 
eyes  wonderingly.  There  seemed  to  be  peo- 
ple near  him,  but  he  could  not  see  them  at 
all  distinctly.  A  faint,  wonderful  perfume 
crept  to  him. 

"It's  very  dark,  isn't  it?"  he  said,  in  sur- 
prise. "I  can  smell  a  beautiful  smell,  but 
63 


The  Very  Small  Person 

I  can't  see  it.  Why,  why!  It  isn't  you,  is 
it? — not  my  mother?  Why,  I  wasn't  'spect- 
ing  to  find —  Oh,  I  morember  it  now — I 
morember  it  all!  Then  I'm  glad  it's  dark. 
I  shouldn't  want  it  to  be  as  light  as  that 
again.  Oh  no!  oh  no!  I  shouldn't  want 
her  to  see —  Why,  she's  crying!  What  is 
she  crying  for?" 

He  put  out  a  small  weak  hand  and  groped 
towards  the  sound  of  bitter  sobbing.  In- 
stinctively he  knew  it  was  she. 

"I'm  very  sorry.  I  guess  I  know  what 
the  matter  is.  It's  me,  and  I'm  very  sorry. 
I  never  knew  it  before;  no,  I  never.  I'm 
glad  it's  dark  now — aren't  you? — 'count  o' 
that.  Only  I'm  a  little  speck  sorry  it  isn't 
light  enough  for  you  to  see  my  legs.  They're 
very  straight  ones — you  can  ask  Olga.  You 
might  feel  of  'em  if  you  thought  'twould 
help  any  to.  P'r'aps  it  might  make  you 
feel  a  very  little — just  a  very  little — better 
to.  They're  cert'nly  very  straight  ones. 
But  then  of  course  they  aren't  like  a — like 
a — a  face.  They're  only  legs.  But  they're 
the  best  I  can  do." 

64 


Bobby  Unwelcome 

He  ended  wearily,  with  a  sigh  of  pain. 
The  bitter  sobbing  kept  on,  and  seemed  to 
trouble  him.  Then  a  new  idea  occurred  to 
him,  and  he  made  a  painful  effort  to  turn 
on  his  pillow  and  to  speak  brightly. 

"I  didn't  think  of  that—  P'r'aps  you 
think  I'm  feeling  bad  'count  o'  the  U  in  the 
middle  o'  my  name.  Is  that  what  makes 
you  cry?  Why,  you  needn't.  That's  all 
right!  After  —  after  I  looked  in  there,  of 
course  I  knew  'bout  how  it  was.  I  wish  you 
wouldn't  cry.  It  joggles  my — my  heart." 

But  it  was  his  little  broken  body  that  it 
joggled.  The  mother  found  it  out,  and 
stopped  sobbing  by  a  mighty  effort.  She 
drew  very  close  to  Bobby  in  the  dark  that 
was  light  to  every  one  else,  and  laid  her  wet 
cheek  against  the  little,  scarred,  red  face. 
The  motion  was  so  gentle  that  it  scarcely 
stirred  the  yellow  tendrils  of  his  soft  hair. 
An  infinite  tenderness  was  born  out  of  her 
anguish.  There  was  left  her  a  merciful  mo- 
ment to  be  a  mother  in.  Bobby  forgot  his 
pain  in  the  bliss  of  it. 

"Why,  why,  this  is  very  nice!"  he  mur- 
65 


The  Very  Small   Person 

mured,  happily.  "I  never  knew  it  would  be 
as  nice  as  this — I  never  knew!  But  I'm  glad 
it's  dark, — aren't  you?  I'd  rather  it  would 
—be-  -dark." 

And  then  it  grew  altogether  dark  for 
Bobby,  and  the  little  face  against  the  new- 
born, heart-broken  mother's  cheek  felt  cold, 
and  would  not  warm  with  all  her  passionate 
kisses. 


CHAPTER    V 

The  Little  Girl  Who  Should 
Have  Been  a  Boy 


The  Little  Girl  Who  Should 
Have  Been  a  Boy 


£HERE  was  so  much  time  for 
the  Little  Girl  who  should 
have  been  a  Boy  to  ponder 
over  it.  She  was  only  seven, 
but  she  grew  quite  skilful  in 
,  pondering.  After  lessons — 
and  lessons  were  over  at  eleven — there  was 
the  whole  of  the  rest  of  the  day  to  wander, 
in  her  little,  desolate  way,  in  the  gardens. 
She  liked  the  fruit -garden  best,  and  the 
Golden  Pippin  tree  was  her  choicest  ponder- 
ing-place.  There  was  never  any  one  there 
with  her.  The  Little  Girl  who  should  have 
been  a  Boy  was  always  alone. 

"You  see  how  it  is.     I've  told  you  times 
69 


The  Very  Small  Person 

enough,"  she  communed  with  herself,  in  her 
quaint,  unchildish  fashion.  "You  are  a  mis- 
take. You  went  and  was  born  a  Girl,  when 
they  wanted  a  Boy — oh,  my,  how  they  want- 
ed a  Boy!  But  the  moment  they  saw  you 
they  knew  it  was  all  up  with  them.  You 
wasn't  wicked,  really,  —  I  guess  it  wasn't 
wicked;  sometimes  I  can't  be  certain, — but 
you  did  go  and  make  such  a  silly  mistake! 
Look  at  me, — why  didn't  you  know  how 
much  they  wanted  a  Boy  and  didn't  want 
you?  Why  didn't  you  be  brave  and  go  up 
to  the  Head  Angel,  and  say,  'Send  me  to 
another  place;  for  pity  sake  don't  send  me 
there.  They  want  a  Little  Boy. '  Why  didn't 
you — oh,  why  didn't  you?  It  would  have 
saved  such  a  lot  of  trouble!" 

The  Little  Girl  who  should  have  been  a 
Boy  always  sighed  at  that  point.  The  sigh 
made  a  period  to  the  sad  little  speech,  for 
after  that  she  always  sat  in  the  long  grass 
under  the  Golden  Pippin  tree  and  rocked 
herself  back  and  forth  silently.  There  was 
no  use  in  saying  anything  more  after  that. 
It  had  all  been  said. 

70 


The  Little  Girl 

It  was  a  great,  beautiful  estate,  to  east  and 
west  and  north  and  south  of  her,  and  the 
Boy  the  Head  Angel  should  have  sent  instead 
of  the  sad  Little  Girl  was  to  have  inherited 
it  all.  And  there  was  a  splendid  title  that 
.went  with  the  estate.  In  the  sharp  mind  of 
the  Little  Girl  nothing  was  hidden  or  undis- 
covered. 

"It  seems  a  pity  to  have  it  wasted,"  she 
mused,  wistfully,  with  her  grave  wide  eyes 
on  the  beautiful  green  expanses  all  about 
her,  "just  for  a  mistake  like  that, — I  mean 
like  me — too.  You'd  think  the  Head  Angel 
would  be  ashamed  of  himself,  wouldn't  you? 
Heprob'ly  is." 

The  Shining  Mother  —  it  was  thus  the 
Little  Girl  who  should  have  been  a  Boy  had 
named  her,  on  account  of  her  sparkling  eyes 
and  wonderful  sparkling  gowns;  everything 
about  the  Shining  Mother  sparkled — the  Shin- 
ing Mother  was  almost  always  away.  So 
was  the  Ogre.  Somewhere  outside — clear 
outside — of  the  green  expanses  there  was  a 
gay,  frivolous  world  where  almost  always 
they  two  stayed. 


The  Very  Small   Person 

The  Little  Girl  called  her  father  the  Ogre 
for  want  of  a  better  name.  She  was  never 
quite  satisfied  with  the  name,  but  it  had  to 
answer  till  she  found  another.  Prob'ly  ogres 
didn't  wear  an  eye-glass  in  one  of  their  eyes, 
or  flip  off  the  sweet  little  daisy  heads  with 
cruel  canes,  but  they  were  oldish  and 
scare-ish,  and  of  course  they  wouldn't  have 
noticed  you  any,  even  if  you  were  their  Little 
Girl.  Ogres  would  have  prob'ly  wanted  a 
Boy  too,  and  that's  the  way  they'd  have  let 
you  see  your  mistake.  So,  till  she  found  a 
better  name,  the  Little  Girl  who  had  made 
the  mistake  called  her  father  the  Ogre.  She 
was  very  proud  and  fond  of  the  Shining 
Mother,  but  she  was  a  little  afraid  of  the 
Ogre.  After  all,  one  feeling  mattered  about 
as  much  as  the  other. 

"It  doesn't  hurt  you  any  to  be  afraid, 
when  you  do  it  all  alone  by  yourself,"  she 
reasoned,  "and  it  doesn't  do  you  any  good 
to  be  fond.  It  only  amuses  you,"  she 
added,  with  sad  wisdom.  As  I  said,  she  was 
only  seven,  but  she  was  very  old  indeed. 

So  the  time  went  along  until  the  weeks 
72 


The  Little  Girl 

piled  up  into  months.  The  summer  she 
was  eight,  the  Little  Girl  could  not  stand 
it  any  longer.  She  decided  that  something 
must  be  done.  The  Shining  Mother  and 
the  Ogre  were  coming  back  to  the  green 
expanses.  She  had  found  that  out  at  les- 
sons. 

"And  then  they  will  have  it  all  to  go  over 
again — all  the  miser 'bleness  of  my  not  being 
a  Boy,"  the  Little  Girl  thought,  sadly. 
"And  I  don't  know  whether  they  can  stand 
it  or  not,  but  7  can't." 

A  wave  of  infinite  longing  had  swept  over 
the  shy,  sensitive  soul  of  the  Little  Girl  who 
should  have  been  a  Boy.  One  of  two  things 
must  happen — she  must  be  loved,  or  die. 
So,  being  desperate,  she  resolved  to  chance 
everything.  It  was  under  the  Golden  Pippin 
tree,  rocking  herself  back  and  forth  in  the 
long  grass,  that  she  made  her  plans.  Straight 
on  the  heels  of  them  she  went  to  the  gar- 
dener's little  boy. 

"Lend  me — no,  I  mean  give  me — your 
best  clothes,"  she  said,  with  gentle  imperi- 
ousness.  It  was  not  a  time  to  waste  words, 
73 


The  Very  Small   Person 

At  best,  the  time  that  was  left  to  practise 
in  was  limited  enough. 

"Your  best  clothes,"  she  had  said,  realiz- 
ing distinctly  that  fustian  and  corduroy 
would  not  do.  She  was  even  a  little  doubt- 
ful of  the  best  clothes.  The  gardener's  little 
boy,  once  his  mouth  had  shut  and  his  legs 
come  back  to  their  locomotion,  brought 
them  at  once.  If  there  was  a  suspicion  of 
alacrity  in  his  obedience  towards  the  last,  it 
escaped  the  thoughtful  eyes  of  the  Little 
Girl.  Having  always  been  a  mistake,  noth- 
ing more,  how  could  she  know  that  a  boy's 
best  clothes  are  not  always  his  dearest  pos- 
sessions ?  Now  if  it  had  been  the  threadbare, 
roomy,  easy  little  fustians,  with  their  pre- 
cious pocket-loads,  that  she  had  demanded! 

There  were  six  days  left  to  practise  in — 
only  six.  How  the  Little  Girl  practised! 
It  was  always  quite  alone  by  herself.  She 
did  it  in  a  sensible,  orderly  way, — the  leaps 
and  strides  first,  whoops  next,  whistle  last. 
The  gardener's  little  boy's  best  clothes  she 
kept  hidden  in  the  long  grass,  under  the 
Golden  Pippin  tree,  and  on  the  fourth  day 
74 


The  Little  Girl 

she  put  them  on.  Oh,  the  agony  of  the 
fourth  day!  She  came  out  of  that  practice 
period  a  wan,  white,  worn  little  thing  that 
should  never  have  been  a  Boy. 

For  it  was  heart-breaking  work.  Every 
instinct  of  the  Little  Girl's  rebelled  against 
it.  It  was  terrible  to  leap  and  whoop  and 
whistle;  her  very  soul  revolted.  But  it  was 
life  or  death  to  her,  and  always  she  perse- 
vered. 

In  those  days  lessons  scarcely  paid.  They 
were  only  a  pitiful  makeshift.  The  Little 
Girl  lived  only  in  her  terrible  practice  hours. 
She  could  not  eat  or  sleep.  She  grew  thin 
and  weak. 

"I  don't  look  like  me  at  all,"  she  told 
herself,  on  a  chair  before  her  mirror.  "But 
that  isn't  the  worst  of  it.  I  don't  look  like 
the  Boy,  either.  Ugh!  how  I  look!  I  won- 
der if  the  Angel  would  know  me  ?  It  would 
be  kind  of  dreadful  not  to  have  anybody 
know  you.  Well,  you  won't  be  you  when 
you're  the  Boy,  so  prob'ly  it  won't  mat- 
ter." 

On  the  sixth  day — the  last  thing — she  cut 
75 


The  Very  Small  Person 

her  hair  off.  She  did  it  with  her  eyes  shut 
to  give  herself  courage,  but  the  snips  of  the 
shears  broke  her  heart.  The  Little  Girl  had 
always  loved  her  soft,  shining  hair.  It  had 
been  like  a  beautiful  thing  apart  from  her, 
that  she  could  caress  and  pet.  She  had  made 
an  idol  of  it,  having  nothing  else  to  love. 

When  it  was  all  shorn  off  she  crept  out  of 
the  room  without  opening  her  eyes.  After 
that  the  gardener's  little  boy's  best  clothes 
came  easier  to  her,  she  found.  And  she 
could  whoop  and  leap  and  whistle  a  little 
better.  It  was  almost  as  if  she  had  really 
made  herself  the  Boy  she  should  have 
been. 

Then  the  Shining  Mother  came,  and  the 
Ogre.  The  Little  Girl — I  mean  the  Boy- 
was  waiting  for  them,  swinging  her — his — 
feet  from  a  high  branch  of  the  Golden  Pip- 
pin tree.  He  was  whistling. 

"But  I  think  I  am  going  to  die,"  he 
thought,  behind  the  whistle.  "I'm  certain 
I  am.  I  feel  it  coming  on." 

Of  course,  after  a  little,  there  was  a  hunt 
everywhere  for  the  Little  Girl.     Even  little 
76 


The  Little  Girl 

girls  cannot  slip  out  of  existence  like  that, 
undiscovered.  The  beautiful  green  expanses 
were  hunted  over  and  over,  but  only  a  gar- 
dener's little  boy  in  his  best  clothes,  whistling 
faintly,  was  found.  He  fell  out  of  the  Gol- 
den Pippin  tree  as  the  field-servants  went 
by,  and  they  stopped  to  carry  his  limp  little 
figure  to  the  gardener's  lodge.  Then  the 
hunt  went  forward  again.  The  Shining 
Mother  grew  faint  and  sick  with  fear,  and 
the  Ogre  strode  about  like  one  demented. 
It  was  hardly  what  was  to  be  expected  of 
the  Shining  Mother  and  the  Ogre. 

Towards  night  the  mystery  was  partly 
solved.  It  was  the  Shining  Mother  who 
found  the  connecting  threads.  She  found 
the  little,  jagged  locks  of  soft,  sweet  hair. 
The  Ogre  came  upon  her  sitting  on  the  floor 
among  them,  and  the  whiteness  of  her  face 
terrified  him. 

"I  know — you  need  not  tell  me  what  has 
happened!"  she  said,  scarcely  above  a  whis- 
per, as  if  in  the  presence  of  the  dead.  "A 
door  in  me  has  opened,  and  I  see  it  all — all, 
I  tell  you!  We  have  never  had  her, — and 
77 


The  Very  Small   Person 

now,  dear  God  in  heaven,  we  have  lost 
her!" 

It  was  very  nearly  so.  They  could  hardly 
know  then  how  near  it  came  to  being  true. 
Link  by  link  they  came  upon  the  little  chain 
of  pitiful  proofs.  They  found  all  the  little, 
sweet,  white  girl-clothes  folded  neatly  by 
themselves  and  laid  in  a  pile  together,  as  if 
on  an  altar  for  sacrifice.  If  the  Little  Girl 
had  written  "Good-bye"  in  her  childish 
scrawl  upon  them,  the  Shining  Mother  would 
not  have  better  understood.  So  many  things 
she  was  seeing  beyond  that  open  door. 

They  found  the  Little  Girl's  dolls  laid  out 
like  little,  white-draped  corpses  in  one  of  her 
bureau  -  drawers.  The  row  of  stolid  little 
faces  gazed  up  at  them  with  the  mystery  of 
the  Sphinx  in  all  their  glittering  eyes.  It 
was  the  Shining  Mother  who  shut  the  drawer, 
but  first  she  kissed  the  faces. 

After  all,  the  Ogre  discovered  the  last  little 
link  of  the  chain.  He  brought  it  home  in  his 
arms  from  the  gardener's  lodge,  and  laid  it 
on  the  Little  Girl's  white  bed.  It  was  very 
still  and  pitiful  and  small.  They  took  the 
78 


The  Little  Girl 

gardener's  little  boy's  best  clothes  off  from 
it  and  put  on  the  soft  white  night-gown  of 
the  Little  Girl.  Then,  one  on  one  side  and 
one  on  the  other,  they  kept  their  long  hard 
vigil. 

It  was  night  when  the  Little  Girl  opened 
her  eyes,  and  the  first  thing  they  saw  was 
the  chairful  of  little  girl-clothes  the  Shining 
Mother  had  set  beside  the  bed.  Then  they 
saw  the  Shining  Mother.  Things  came  back 
to  the  Little  Girl  by  slow  degrees.  But  the 
look  in  the  Shining  Mother's  face — that  did 
not  come  back.  That  had  never  been  there 
before.  The  Little  Girl,  in  her  wise,  old  way, 
understood  that  look,  and  gasped  weakly 
with  the  joy  and  wonder  of  it.  Oh,  the  joy! 
Oh,  the  wonder! 

"But  I  tried  to  be  one,"  she  whispered 
after  a  while,  a  little  bewildered  still.  "  I 
should  have  done  it,  if  I  hadn't  died.  I 
couldn't  help  that;  I  felt  it  coming  on. 
Prob'ly,  though,  I  shouldn't  have  made  a 
very  good  one." 

The  Shining  Mother  bent  over  and  took 
the  Little  Girl  in  her  arms. 
79 


The  Very  Small  Person 

"Dear,"  she  whispered,  "it  was  the  Boy 
that  died.  I  am  glad  he  died." 

So,  though  the  Ogre  and  the  Shining 
Mother  had  not  found  their  Boy,  the  Little 
Girl  had  found  a  father  and  mother. 


CHAPTER    VI 

The   Lie 


The   Lie 


[HE  Lie  went  up  to  bed  with 
him.  Russy  didn't  want  it 
to,  but  it  crept  in  through 
the  key-hole, — it  must  have 
been  the  key-hole,  for  the 
door  was  shut  the  minute 
Metta's  skirt  had  whisked  through.  But 
one  thing  Russy  had  to  be  thankful  for, — 
Metta  didn't  know  it  was  there  in  the  room. 
As  far  as  that  went,  it  was  a  kind-hearted 
Lie.  But  after  Metta  went  away, — after 
she  had  put  out  the  light  and  said  "  Pleasant 
dreams,  Master  Russy,  an'  be  sure  an'  don't 
roll  out," — after  that! 

Russy  snuggled  deep  down  in  the  pillows 
and  said  he  would  go  right  to  sleep;    oh, 
right  straight!     He  always  had  before.     It 
7  83 


The  Very  Small  Person 

made  you  forget  the  light  was  out,  and 
there  were  queer,  creaky  night -noises  all 
round  your  bed, — under  it  some  of  'em ;  over 
by  the  bureau  some  of  'em ;  and  some  of  'em 
coming  creepy,  cree-py  up  the  stairs.  You 
dug  your  head  deep  down  in  the  pillows,  and 
the  next  thing  you  knew  you  were  asleep,— 
no,  awake,  and  the  noises  were  beautiful 
day-ones  that  you  liked.  You  heard  roosters 
crowing,  and  Mr.  Vandervoort's  cows  calling 
for  breakfast,  and,  likely  as  not,  some  mother- 
birds  singing  duets  with  their  husbands. 
Oh  yes,  it  was  a  good  deal  the  best  way  to 
do,  to  go  right  straight  to  sleep  when  Metta 
put  the  light  out. 

But  to-night  it  was  different,  for  the  Lie 
was  there.  You  couldn't  go  to  sleep  with  a 
Lie  in  the  room.  It  was  worse  than  creepy, 
creaky  noises, — mercy,  yes!  You'd  swap  it 
for  those  quick  enough  and  not  ask  a  single 
bit  of  "boot."  You  almost  wanted  to  hear 
the  noises. 

It  came  across  the  room.  There  was  no 
sound,  but  Russy  knew  it  was  coming  well 
enough.  He  knew  when  it  got  up  close  to 
84 


"IT    WAS    WORSE    THAN    CREEPY,    CREAKY    NOISES 


The  Lie 

the  side  of  the  bed.  Then  it  stopped  and 
began  to  speak.  It  wasn't  "out  loud"  and 
it  wasn't  a  whisper,  but  Russy  heard  it. 

"Move  over;  I'm  coming  into  bed  with 
you,"  the  Lie  said.  "  I  hope  you  don't  think 
I'm  going  to  sit  up  all  night.  Besides,  I'm 
always  scared  in  the  dark, — it  runs  in  my 
family.  The  Lies  are  always  afraid.  They're 
not  good  sleepers,  either,  so  let's  talk.  You 
begin — or  shall  I?" 

"You,"  moaned  Russy. 

"Well,  I  say,  this  is  great,  isn't  it!  I  like 
this  house.  I  stayed  at  Barney  Toole's  last 
night  and  it  doesn't  begin  with  this.  Bar- 
ney's folks  are  poor,  and  there  aren't  any 
curtains  or  carpets  or  anything, — nor  pillows 
on  the  bed.  I  never  slept  a  wink  at  Barney's. 
I'm  hoping  I  shall  drop  off  here,  after  a 
while.  It's  a  new  place,  and  I'm  more  likely 
to  in  new  places.  You  never  slept  with  one 
o'  my  family  before,  did  you?" 

"No,"  Russy  groaned.  "Oh  no,  I  never 
before!" 

"That's  what  I  thought.  I  should  have 
been  likely  to  hear  of  it  if  you  had.  I  was  a 
85 


The  Very  Small  Person 

little  surprised, — I  say,  what  made  you  have 
anything  to  do  with  me.  I  was  never  more 
surprised  in  my  life!  They'd  always  said: 
'Well,  you'll  never  get  acquainted  with  that 
Russy  Rand.  He's  another  kind.'  Then 
you  went  and  shook  hands  with  me!" 

"I  had  to."  Russy  sat  up  in  bed  and 
stiffened  himself  for  self-defence.  "  I  had  to! 
When  Jeffy  Vandervoort  said  that  about  Her 
—well,  I  guess  you'd  have  had  to  if  they 
said  things  about  your  mother — " 

"I  never  had  one.  The  Lies  have  a 
Father,  that's  all.  Go  ahead." 

"There  isn't  anything  else, — I  just  had 
to." 

"Tell  what  you  said  and  what  he  said. 
Go  ahead." 

"  You  know  all  about — " 

"Go  ahead!" 

Russy  rocked  himself  back  and  forth  in 
his  agony.  It  was  dreadful  to  have  to  say 
it  all  over  again. 

"Well,  then,"  doggedly,  "Jeffy  said  my 
mother  never  did,  but  his  did — oh,  always!" 

"Did  what — oh,  always?" 
86 


The  Lie 

Russy  clinched  his  little  round  fingers  till 
the  bones  cracked  under  the  soft  flesh. 

"Kissed  him  good-night — went  up  to  his 
room  a-purpose  to,  an' — an' — tucked  him  in. 
Oh,  always,  he  said.  He  said  mine  never  did. 
An'  I  said—" 

"You  said — go  ahead!" 

"I  said  she  did,  too,  —  oh  —  always," 
breathed  Russy  in  the  awful  dark.  "  I  had 
to.  When  it's  your  mother,  you  have  to — " 

"  I  never  had  one,  I  told  you!  How  do  I 
know?  Go  on." 

He  was  driven  on  relentlessly.  He  had  it 
all  to  go  through  with,  and  he  whispered  the 
rest  hurriedly  to  get  it  done. 

"  I  said  she  tucked  me  in, — came  up  a-pur- 
pose to, — an'  always  kissed  me  twice  (his 
only  does  once),  an'  always — called  me — 
Dear."  Russy  fell  back  in  a  heap  on  the 
pillows  and  sobbed  into  them. 

"My  badness!" — anybody  but  a  Lie  would 
have  said  "my  goodness," — "but  you  did  do 
it  up  brown  that  time,  didn't  you!  But  I 
don't  suppose  he  believed  a  word  of  it — you 
didn't  make  him  believe  you,  did  you?" 
87 


The  Very  Small   Person 

"He  had  to,"  cried  out  Russy,  fiercely. 
' '  He  said  I  'd  never  lied  to  him  in  my  life — 

"Before; — yes,  I  know." 

Russy  slipped  out  of  bed  and  padded  over 
the  thick  carpet  towards  the  place  where  the 
window -seat  was  in  the  daytime.  But  it 
wasn't  there.  He  put  out  his  hands  and 
hunted  desperately  for  it.  Yes,  there, — no, 
that  was  sharp  and  hard  and  hurt  you. 
That  must  be  the  edge  of  the  bureau.  He 
tried  again,  for  he  must  find  it, — he  must! 
He  would  not  stay  in  bed  with  that  Lie  an- 
other minute.  It  crowded  him, — it  tortured 
him  so. 

"This  is  it,"  thought  Russy,  and  sank 
down  gratefully  on  the  cushions.  His  bare 
feet  scarcely  touched  toe-tips  to  the  floor. 
Here  he  would  stay  all  night.  This  was 
better  than — 

"  I'm  coming, — which  way  are  you  ?  Can 't 
you  speak  up?" 

The  Lie  was  coming,  too!     Suddenly  an 

awful  thought  flashed  across  Russy 's  little, 

weary  brain.     What  if  the  Lie  would  always 

come,  too  ?   What  if  he  could  never  get  away 

88 


The  Lie 

from  it  ?  What  if  it  slept  with  him,  walked 
with  him,  talked  with  him,  lived  with  him, — 
oh,  always! 

But  Russy  stiffened  again  with  dogged 
courage.  "I  had  to!"  he  thought.  "I  had 
to, — I  had  to, — I  had  to!  When  he  said 
things  about  Her, — when  it's  your  mother, — 
you  have  to." 

A  great  time  went  by,  measureless  by 
clock-ticks  and  aching  little  heart-beats.  It 
seemed  to  be  weeks  and  months  to  Russy. 
Then  he  began  to  feel  a  slow  relief  creeping 
over  his  misery,  and  he  said  to  himself  the 
Lie  must  have  "dropped  off."  There  was 
not  a  sound  of  it  in  the  room.  It  grew  so 
still  and  beautiful  that  Russy  laughed  to 
himself  in  his  relief.  He  wanted  to  leap  to 
his  feet  and  dance  about  the  room,  but  he 
thought  of  the  sharp  corners  and  hard  edges 
of  things  in  time.  Instead,  he  nestled  among 
the  cushions  of  the  window-seat  and  laughed 
on  softly.  Perhaps  it  was  all  over, — perhaps 
it  wasn't  asleep,  but  had  gone  away — to 
Barney  Toole's,  perhaps,  where  they  regularly 
"put  up"  Lies, — and  would  never  come 
89 


The  Very  Small  Person 

back!  Russy  gasped  for  joy.  Perhaps  when 
you'd  never  shaken  hands  with  a  Lie  but 
once  in  your  life,  and  that  time  you  had  to, 
and  you'd  borne  it,  anyway,  for  what  seemed 
like  weeks  and  months, — perhaps  then  they 
went  away  and  left  you  in  peace!  Perhaps 
you'd  had  punishment  enough  then. 

Very  late  Russy's  mother  came  up-stairs. 
She  was  very  tired,  and  her  pretty  young 
face  in  the  frame  of  soft  down  about  her 
opera-cloak  looked  a  little  cross.  Russy's 
father  plodded  behind  more  heavily. 

"The  boy's  room,  Ellen? — just  this  once?" 
he  pleaded  in  her  ear.  "It  will  take  but  a 
minute." 

"I'm  so  tired,  Carter!  Well,  if  I  must- 
Why,  he  isn't  in  the  bed!" 

The  light  from  the  hall  streamed  in,  show- 
ing it  tumbled  and  tossed  as  if  two  had  slept 
in  it.  But  no  one  was  in  it  now.  The 
mother's  little  cry  of  surprise  sharpened  to 
anxiety. 

"Where  is  he,  Carter?  Why  don't  you 
speak?  He  isn't  here  in  bed,  I  tell  you! 
Russy  isn't  here!" 

90 


The  Lie 

"He  has  rolled  out, — no,  he  hasn't  rolled 
out.  I'll  light  up  —  there  he  is,  Ellen! 
There's  the  little  chap  on  the  window-seat!" 

"And  the  window  is  open!"  she  cried, 
sharply.  She  darted  across  to  the  little 
figure  and  gathered  it  up  into  her  arms. 
She  had  never  been  frightened  about  Russy 
before.  Perhaps  it  was  the  fright  that 
brought  her  to  her  own. 

"He  is  cold,  —  his  little  night-dress  is 
damp!"  she  said.  Then  her  kisses  rained 
down  on  the  little,  sleeping  face.  In  his 
sleep,  Russy  felt  them,  but  he  thought  it  was 
Jeffy's  mother  kissing  Jeffy. 

"It  feels  good,  doesn't  it?"  he  murmured. 
"I  don't  wonder  Jeffy  likes  it!  If  my 
mother  kissed  me —  I  told  Jeffy  she  did! 
It  was  a  Lie,  but  I  had  to.  You  have  to, 
when  they  say  things  like  that  about  your 
mother.  You  have  to  say  she  kisses  you — 
oh,  always!  She  comes  'way  up-stairs  every 
night  a-purpose  to.  An'  she  tucks  you  in, 
an'  she  calls  you — Dear.  It's  a  Lie  an'  it 
'most  kills  you,  but  you  have  to  say  it.  But 
it's  perfectly  awful  afterwards."  He  nestled 


The  Very  Small   Person 

against  the  soft  down  of  her  cloak  and  moan- 
ed as  if  in  pain.  "  It's  awful  afterwards  when 
you  have  to  sleep  with  the  Lie.  It's  perfectly 
-aw— ful— " 

"Oh,  Carter!"  the  mother  broke  out,  for 
it  was  all  plain  to  her.  In  a  flash  of  agonized 
understanding  the  wistful  little  sleep-story 
was  filled  out  in  every  detail.  She  under- 
stood all  the  tragedy  of  it. 

"Russy!  Russy!"  She  shook  him  in  her 
eagerness.  "Russy,  it's  my  kisses!  I'm 
kissing  you!  It  isn't  Jeffy's  mother, — it's 
your  mother,  Russy!  Feel  them! — don't  you 
feel  them  on  your  forehead  and  your  hair 
and  your  little  red  lips?  It's  your  mother 
kissing  you!" 

Russy  opened  his  eyes. 

"Why!     Why,  so  it  is!"  he  said: 

"And  calling  you  'Dear,'  Russy!  Don't 
you  hear  her?  Dear  boy, — dear  little  boy! 
You  hear  her,  don't  you,  Russy — dear?" 

"Why,  yes!— why!" 

"And  tucking  you  into  bed — like  this, — 
so!  She's  tucking  in  the  blanket  now, — and 
now  the  little  quilt,  Russy.  That  is  what 
92 


The   Lie 

mothers  are  for — I  never  thought  before — 
oh,  I  never  thought!"  She  dropped  her  face 
beside  his  on  the  pi  low  and  fell  to  kissing 
him  again.  He  held  his  face  quite  still  for 
the  sweet,  strange  baptism.  Then  suddenly 
he  laughed  out  happily,  wildly. 

"Then  it  isn't  a  Lie!"  he  cried,  in  a  delirium 
of  relief  and  joy.     "  It's  true!" 


CHAPTER    VII 

The  Princess  of  Make- 
Believe 


The  Princess  of  Make- 
Believe 


[HE  Princess  was  washing 
dishes.  On  her  feet  she 
would  barely  have  reached 
the  rim  of  the  great  dish- 
pan,  but  on  the  soap-box 
she  did  very  well.  A  grimy 
calico  apron  trailed  to  the  floor. 

"Now  this  golden  platter  I  must  wash 
extry  clean,"  the  Princess  said.  "The  Queen 
is  ve-ry  particular  about  her  golden  platters. 
Last  time,  when  I  left  one  o'  the  corners — 
it's  such  a  nextremely  heavy  platter  to  hold 
— she  gave  me  a  scold — oh,  I  mean — I  mean 
she  tapped  me  a  little  love  pat  on  my  cheek 
with  her  golden  spoon." 

It  was  a  great,  brown-veined,  stoneware 
97 


The  Very  Small  Person 

platter,  and  the  arms  of  the  Princess  ached 
with  holding  it.  Then,  in  an  unwary  instant, 
it  slipped  out  of  her  soapsudsy  little  fingers 
and  crashed  to  the  floor.  Oh!  oh!  the 
Queen!  the  Queen!  She  was  coming!  The 
Princess  heard  her  shrill,  angry  voice,  and 
felt  the  jar  of  her  heavy  steps.  There  was 
the  space  of  an  instant — an  instant  is  so 
short! — before  the  storm  broke. 

"You  little  limb  o'  Satan!  That's  my 
best  platter,  is  it?  Broke  all  to  bits,  eh? 
I'll  break — "  But  there  was  a  flurry  of 
dingy  apron  and  dingier  petticoats,  and  the 
little  Princess  had  fled.  She  did  not  stop 
till  she  was  in  her  Secret  Place  among  the 
willows.  Her  small  lean  face  was  pale  but 
undaunted. 

"Th-the  Queen  isn't  feeling  very  well  to- 
day," she  panted.  "It's  wash-day  up  at 
the  Castle.  She  never  enjoys  herself  on 
wash-days.  And  then  that  golden  platter — 
I'm  sorry  I  smashed  it  all  to  flinders!  When 
the  Prince  comes  I  shall  ask  him  to  buy 
another." 

The  Prince  had  never  come,  but  the  Prin- 
98 


The  Princess  of  Make-Believe 

cess  waited  for  him  patiently.  She  sat  with 
her  face  to  the  west  and  looked  for  him  to 
come  through  the  willows  with  the  red  sun- 
set light  filtering  across  his  hair.  That  was 
the  way  the  Prince  was  coming,  though  the 
time  was  not  set.  It  might  be  a  good  while 
before  he  came,  and  then  again — you  never 
could  tell! 

"  But  when  he  does,  and  we've  had  a  little 
while  to  get  acquainted,  then  I  shall  say  to 
him,  '  Hear,  O  Prince,  and  give  ear  to  my — 
my  petition!  For  verily,  verily,  I  have 
broken  many  golden  platters  and  jasper  cups 
and  saucers,  and  the  Queen,  long  live  her! 
is  sore — sore — "' 

The  Princess  pondered  for  the  forgotten 
word.  She  put  up  a  little  lean  brown  hand 
and  rubbed  a  tingling  spot  on  her  temple — 
ah,  not  the  Queen!  It  was  the  Princess — 
long  live  her! — who  was  "sore." 

"'I  beseech  thee,  O  Prince,'  I  shall  say, 
'buy  new  golden  platters  and  jasper  cups 
and  saucers  for  the  Queen,  and  then  shall  I 
verily,  verily  be — be — '" 

Oh,  the  long  words — how  they  slipped  out 
s  99 


The  Very  Small   Person 

of  reach!  The  little  Princess  sighed  rather 
wearily.  She  would  have  to  rehearse  that 
speech  so  many  times  before  the  Prince  came. 
Suppose  he  came  to-night!  Suppose  she 
looked  up  now,  this  minute,  towards  the 
golden  west  and  he  was  there,  swinging  along 
through  the  willow  canes  towards  her! 

But  there  was  no  one  swinging  along 
through  the  willows.  The  yellow  light  flick- 
ered through — that  was  all.  Somewhere,  a 
long  way  off,  sounded  the  monotonous  hum 
of  men's  voices.  Through  the  lace- work  of 
willow  twigs  there  showed  the  faintest  possi- 
ble blur  of  color.  Down  beyond,  in  the 
clearing,  the  Castle  Guards  in  blue  jean 
blouses  were  pulling  stumps.  The  Princess 
could  not  see  their  dull,  passionless  faces, 
and  she  was  glad  of  it.  The  Castle  Guards 
depressed  her.  But  they  were  not  as  bad 
as  the  Castle  Guardesses.  They  were  mostly 
old  women  with  bleared,  dim  eyes,  and  they 
wore  such  faded — silks. 

" My  silk  dress  is  rather  faded,"  murmur- 
ed the  little  Princess  wistfully.  She  smooth- 
ed down  the  scant  calico  skirt  with  her 

100 


The   Princess   of   Make-Believe 

brown  little  fingers.  The  patch  in  it  she 
would  not  see. 

"I  shall  have  to  have  the  Royal  Dress- 
maker make  me  another  one  soon.  Let  me 
see, — what  color  shall  I  choose?  I'd  like 
my  gold-colored  velvet  made  up.  I'm  tired 
of  wearing  royal  purple  dresses  all  the  time, 
though  of  course  I  know  they're  appropriater. 
I  wonder  what  color  the  Prince  would  like 
best?  I  should  rather  choose  that  color." 

The  Princess's  little  brown  hands  were 
clasped  about  one  knee,  and  she  was  rocking 
herself  slowly  back  and  forth,  her  eyes,  wist- 
ful and  wide,  on  the  path  the  Prince  would 
come.  She  was  tired  to-day  and  it  was 
harder  to  wait. 

' '  But  when  he  comes  I  shall  say,  '  Hear, 
O  Prince.  Verily,  verily,  I  did  not  know 
which  color  you  would  like  to  find  me  dressed 
— I  mean  arrayed — in,  and  so  I  beseech  thee 
excuse — pardon,  I  mean — mine  infirmity." 

The  Princess  was  not  sure  of  "infirmity," 
but  it  sounded  well.  She  could  not  think  of 
a  better  word. 

"And  then — I   think  then — he  will  take 

101 


The  Very  Small    Person 

me  in  his  arms,  and  his  face  will  be  all  sweet 
and  splendid  like  the  Mother  o'  God's  in  the 
picture,  and  he  will  whisper, — I  don't  think 
he  will  say  it  out  loud, — oh,  I'd  rather  not!— 
'  Verily,  Princess,'  he  will  whisper, '  Oh,  verily, 
verily,  thou  hast  found  favor  in  my  sight!' 
And  that  will  mean  that  he  doesn't  care  what 
color  I  am,  for  he — loves — me." 

Lower  and  lower  sank  the  solemn  voice  of 
the  Princess.  Slower  and  slower  rocked  the 
little,  lean  body.  The  birds  themselves 
stopped  singing  at  the  end.  In  the  Secret 
Place  it  was  very  still. 

"Oh  no,  no,  no,  —  not  verily!"  breathed 
the  Princess,  in  soft  awe.  For  the  wonder 
of  it  took  her  breath  away.  She  had  never 
in  her  life  been  loved,  and  now,  at  this  mo- 
ment, it  seemed  so  near!  She  thought  she 
heard  the  footsteps  of  the  Prince. 

They  came  nearer.  The  crisp  twigs  snap- 
ped under  his  feet.  He  was  whistling. 

"Oh,  I  can't  look!— I  can't!"  gasped  the 
little  Princess,  but  she  turned  her  face  to  the 
west, — she  had  always  known  it  would  be 
from  the  west, — and  lifted  closed  eyes  to  his 

IO2 


The  Princess   of   Make-Believe 

coming.  When  he  got  to  the  Twisted  Willow 
she  might  dare  to  look, — to  the  Little  Willow 
Twins,  anyway. 

"And  I  shall  know  when  he  does,"  she 
thought.  "I  shall  know  the  minute!" 

Her  face  was  rapt  and  tender.  The 
miracle  she  had  made  for  herself, — the  gold 
she  had  coined  out  of  her  piteous  alloy,— 
was  it  not  come  true  at  last  ? — Verily,  verily  ? 

Hush !  Was  the  Prince  not  coming  through 
the  willows  ?  And  the  sunshine  was  trickling 
down  on  his  hair!  The  Princess  knew, 
though  she  did  not  look. 

"He  is  at  the  Twisted  Willow,"  she 
thought.  "Now  he  is  at  the  Little  Willow 
Twins."  But  she  did  not  open  her  eyes. 
She  did  not  dare.  This  was  a  little  different, 
she  had  never  counted  on  being  afraid. 

The  twigs  snapped  louder  and  nearer — 
now  very  near.  The  merry  whistle  grew 
clearer,  and  then  it  stopped. 

"Hullo!" 

Did  princes  say  "hullo!"  The  Princess 
had  little  time  to  wonder,  for  he  was  there 
before  her.  She  could  feel  his  presence  in 
103 


The  Very  Small   Person 

every  fibre  of  her  trembling  little  being, 
though  she  would  not  open  her  eyes  for  very 
fear  that  it  might  be  somebody  else.  No,  no, 
it  was  the  Prince!  It  was  his  voice,  clear 
and  ringing,  as  she  had  known  it  would  be. 
She  put  up  her  hands  suddenly  and  covered 
her  eyes  with  them  to  make  surer.  It  was 
not  fear  now,  but  a  device  to  put  off  a  little 
longer  the  delight  of  seeing  him. 

"  I  say,  hullo !  Haven't  you  got  any  tongue  ?" 

"Oh,  verily,  verily, — I  mean  hear,  O 
Prince,  I  beseech,"  she  panted.  The  boy's 
merry  eyes  regarded  the  shabby  small  person 
in  puzzled  astonishment.  He  felt  an  impulse 
to  laugh  and  run  away,  but  his  royal  blood 
forbade  either.  So  he  waited. 

"You  are  the  Prince,"  the  little  Princess 
cried.  "I've  been  waiting  the  longest  time, 
—but  I  knew  you'd  come,"  she  added,  simply. 
"Have  you  got  your  velvet  an'  gold  buckles 
on?  I'm  goin'  to  look  in  a  minute,  but  I'm 
waiting  to  make  it  spend." 

The    Prince    whistled    softly.     "No,"    he 
said  then,  "I  didn't  wear  them  clo'es  to-day. 
You  see,  my  mother — 
104 


The  Princess   of  Make-Believe 

"The  Queen,"  she  interrupted,  "you  mean 
the  Queen?" 

"You  bet  I  do!  She's  a  reg'lar-builter! 
Well,  she  don't  like  to  have  me  wearin'  out 
my  best  clo'es  every  day,"  he  said,  gravely. 

"No,"  eagerly,  "nor  mine  don't.  Queen, 
I  mean, — but  she  isn't  a  mother,  mercy,  no! 
I  only  wear  silk  dresses  every  day,  not  my 
velvet  ones.  This  silk  one  is  getting  a  little 
faded."  She  released  one  hand  to  smooth 
the  dress  wistfully.  Then  she  remembered 
her  painfully  practised  little  speech  and 
launched  into  it  hurriedly. 

"Hear,  O  Prince.  Verily,  verily,  I  did  not 
know  which  color  you'd  like  to  find  me 
dressed  in — I  mean  arrayed.  I  beseech  thee 
to  excuse — oh,  pardon,  I  mean — 

But  she  got  no  further.  She  could  endure 
the  delay  no  longer,  and  her  eyes  flew  open. 

She  had  known  his  step;  she  had  known 
his  voice.  She  knew  his  face.  It  was  ter- 
ribly freckled,  and  she  had  not  expected 
freckles  on  the  face  of  the  Prince.  But  the 
merry,  honest  eyes  were  the  Prince's  eyes. 
Her  gaze  wandered  downward  to  the  home- 
I05 


The  Very  Small   Person 

made  clothes  and  bare,  brown  legs,  but  with- 
out uneasiness.  The  Prince  had  explained 
about  his  clothes.  Suddenly,  with  a  shy, 
glad  little  cry,  the  Princess  held  out  her 
hands  to  him. 

The  royal  blood  flooded  the  face  of  the 
Prince  and  filled  in  all  the  spaces  between 
its  little,  gold-brown  freckles.  But  the  Prince 
held  out  his  hand  to  her.  His  lips  formed 
for  words  and  she  thought  he  was  going  to 
say,  "Verily,  Princess,  thou  hast  found 
favor — " 

"Le*  's  go  fishin',"  the  Prince  said. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

The    Promise 


The    Promise 


[URRAY  was  not  as  one  with- 
out hope,  for  there  was  the 
Promise.  The  remembrance 
of  it  set  him  now  to  exulting, 
in  an  odd,  restrained  little 
way,  where  a  moment  ago 
he  had  been  desponding.  He  clasped  plump, 
brown  little  hands  around  a  plump,  brown 
little  knee  and  swayed  gently  this  way  and 
that. 

"Maybe  she'll  begin  with  my  shoes,"  Mur- 
ray thought,  and  held  his  foot  quite  still. 
He  could  almost  feel  light  fingers  unlacing 
the  stubbed  little  shoe;  Sheelah's  fingers 
were  rather  heavy  and  not  patient  with 
knots.  Hers  would  be  patient — there  are 
some  things  one  is  certain  of. 
109 


The  Very  Small   Person 

"When  she  unbuttons  me,"  Murray  mused 
on,  sitting  absolutely  motionless,  as  if  she 
were  unbuttoning  him  now — "when  she  un- 
buttons me  I  shall  hold  in  my  breath — this 
way,"  though  he  could  hardly  have  explained 
why. 

She  had  never  unlaced  or  unbuttoned  him. 
Always,  since  he  was  a  little,  breathing  soul, 
it  had  been  Sheelah.  It  had  never  occurred 
to  him  that  he  loved  Sheelah,  but  he  was 
used  to  her.  All  the  mothering  he  had  ever 
experienced  had  been  the  Sheelah  kind — 
thorough  enough,  but  lacking  something; 
Murray  was  conscious  that  it  lacked  some- 
thing. Perhaps — perhaps  to-night  he  should 
find  out  what.  For  to-night  not  Sheelah, 
but  his  mother,  was  going  to  undress  him 
and  put  him  to  bed.  She  had  promised. 

It  had  come  about  through  his  unprece- 
dented wail  of  grief  at  parting,  when  she 
had  gone  into  the  nursery  to  say  good-bye, 
in  her  light,  sweet  way.  Perhaps  it  was  be- 
cause she  was  to  be  gone  all  day;  perhaps 
he  was  a  little  lonelier  than  usual.  He  was 
always  rather  a  lonely  little  boy,  but  there 
no 


The   Promise 

were  worse  times;  perhaps  this  had  been  a 
worse  time.  Whatever  had  been  the  reason 
that  prompted  him,  he  had  with  disquieting 
suddenness,  before  Sheelah  could  prevent  it, 
flung  his  arms  about  the  pretty  mother  and 
made  audible  objection  to  her  going. 

"Why,  Murray!"  She  had  been  taken  by 
surprise.  "Why,  you  little  silly!  I'm  com- 
ing back  to-night;  I'm  only  going  for  the 
day!  You  wouldn't  see  much  more  of  me 
if  I  stayed  at  home."  Which,  from  its  very 
reasonableness,  had  quieted  him.  Of  course 
he  would  not  see  much  more  of  her.  As  sud- 
denly as  he  had  wailed  he  stopped  wailing. 
Yet  she  had  promised.  Something  had  sent 
her  back  to  the  nursery  door  to  do  it. 

"  Be  a  good  boy  and  I'll  come  home  before 
you  go  to  bed!  I'll  put  you  to  bed,"  she 
had  promised.  "We'll  have  a  regular  lark!" 

Hence  he  was  out  here  on  the  door-step 
being  a  good  boy.  That  Sheelah  had  taken 
unfair  advantage  of  the  Promise  and  made 
the  being  good  rather  a  perilous  undertaking, 
he  did  not  appreciate.  He  only  knew  he  must 
walk  a  narrow  path  across  a  long,  lonely  day. 
in 


The  Very  Small  Person 

There  were  certain  things  —  one  especial 
certain  thing — he  wanted  to  know,  but  in- 
stinct warned  him  not  to  interrupt  Sheelah 
till  her  work  was  done,  or  she  might  call  it 
not  being  good.  So  he  waited,  and  while  he 
waited  he  found  out  the  special  thing.  An 
unexpected  providence  sent  enlightenment 
his  way,  to  sit  down  beside  him  on  the  door- 
step. Its  other  name  was  Daisy. 

"Hullo,  Murray!  Is  this  you?"  Daisy, 
being  of  the  right  sex,  asked  needless  ques- 
tions sometimes. 

"Yes,"  answered  Murray,  politely. 

"Well,  le's  play.  I  can  stay  half  a  hour. 
Le's  tag." 

"I  can't  play,"  rejoined  Murray,  caution 
restraining  his  natural  desires.  "I'm  being 
good." 

"Oh,  my!"  shrilled  the  girl  child  derisively. 
"Can't  you  be  good  tagging?  Come  on." 

"No;  because  you  might  —  /  might  get 
no-fairing,  and  then  Sheelah 'd  come  out  and 
say  I  was  bad.  Le's  sit  here  and  talk;  it's 
safer  to.  What's  a  lark,  Daisy?  I  was  go- 
ing to  ask  Sheelah." 

112 


"'i  CAN'T  PLAY  .       .  I'M  BRING  GOOD'" 


The   Promise 

"A — lark?     Why,  it's  a  bird,  of  course!" 

"I  don't  mean  the  bird  kind,  but  the  kind 
you  have  when  your  mother  puts  you — when 
something  splendid  happens.  That  kind,  I 
mean." 

Daisy  pondered.  Her  acquaintance  with 
larks  was  limited,  unless  it  meant — 

"Do  you  mean  a  good  time?"  she  asked. 
"We  have  larks  over  to  my  house  when  we 
go  to  bed — " 

"That's  it!  That's  the  kind!"  shouted 
delighted  Murray.  "I'm  going  to  have  one 
when  I  go  to  bed.  Do  you  have  regular  ones, 
Daisy?"  with  a  secret  little  hope  that  she 
didn't.  "I'm  going  to  have  a  reg'lar  one." 

"Huh! — chase  all  'round  the  room  an'  turn 
somersaults  an'  be  highway  robberers?  An' 
take  the  hair-pins  out  o'  your  mother's  hair 
an'  hide  in  it — what?" 

Murray  gasped  a  little  at  the  picture  of 
that  kind  of  a  lark.  It  was  difficult  to 
imagine  himself  chasing  'round  the  room  or 
being  a  highwayman;  and  as  for  somer- 
saults— he  glanced  uneasily  over  his  shoul- 
der, as  if  Sheelah  might  be  looking  and  read 


The  Very  Small  Person 

"somersaults"  through  the  back  of  his  head. 
For  once  he  had  almost  turned  one  and 
Sheelah  had  found  him  in  the  middle  of  it 
and  said  pointed  things.  In  Sheelah 's  code 
of  etiquette  there  were  no  somersaults  in  the 
"s"  column. 

"  It's  a  reg'lar  lark  to  hide  in  your  mother's 
hair,"  was  going  on  the  girl  child's  voice. 
"Yes,  sir,  that's  the  reg'larest  kind!" 

Murray  gasped  again,  harder.  For  that 
kind  took  away  his  breath  altogether  and 
made  him  feel  a  little  dizzy,  as  if  he  were — 
were  doing  it  now — hiding  in  his  mother's 
hair!  It  was  soft,  beautiful,  gold-colored 
hair,  and  there  was  a  great  deal  of  it — oh, 
plenty  to  hide  in!  He  shut  his  eyes  and  felt 
it  all  about  him  and  soft  against  his  face, 
and  smelled  the  faint  fragrance  of  it.  The 
dizziness  was  sweet. 

Yes,  that  must  be  the  reg'larest  kind  of  a 
lark,  but  Murray  did  not  deceive  himself, 
once  the  dream  was  over.  He  knew  that 
kind  was  not  waiting  for  him  at  the  end  of 
this  long  day.  But  a  lark  was  waiting,  any- 
way— a  plain  lark.  It  might  have  been  the 
114 


The  Promise 

bird  kind  in  his  little  heart  now,  singing  for 
joy  at  the  prospect. 

Impatience  seized  upon  Murray.  He  want- 
ed this  little  neighbor's  half -hour  to  be  up,  so 
that  he  could  go  in  and  watch  the  clock.  He 
wanted  Sheelah  to  come  out  here,  for  that 
would  mean  it  was  ten  o'clock;  she  always 
came  at  ten.  He  wanted  it  to  be  noon,  to 
be  afternoon,  to  be  night  I  The  most  beau- 
tiful time  in  his  rather  monotonous  little  life 
was  down  there  at  the  foot  of  the  day,  and 
he  was  creeping  towards  it  on  the  lagging 
hours.  He  was  like  a  little  traveller  on  a 
dreary  plain,  with  the  first  ecstatic  glimpse 
of  a  hill  ahead. 

Murray  in  his  childish  way  had  been  in 
love  a  long  time,  but  he  had  never  got  very 
near  his  dear  lady.  He  had  watched  her  a 
little  way  off  and  wondered  at  the  gracious 
beauty  of  her,  and  loved  her  eyes  and  her 
lips  and  her  soft,  gold-colored  hair.  He  had 
never — oh,  never — been  near  enough  to  be 
unlaced  and  unbuttoned  and  put  to  bed  by 
the  lady  that  he  loved.  She  had  come  in 
sometimes  in  a  wondrous  dress  to  say  good- 
9  115 


The  Very  Small  Person 

night,  but  often,  stopping  at  the  mirror  on 
the  way  across  to  him,  she  had  seen  a  beau- 
tiful vision  and  forgotten  to  say  it.  And 
Murray  had  not  wondered,  for  he  had  seen 
the  vision,  too. 

"Your  mamma's  gone  away,  hasn't  she? 
I  saw  her." 

Daisy  was  still  there!  Murray  pulled  him- 
self out  of  his  dreaming,  to  be  polite. 

"Yes;  but  she's  coming  back  to-night. 
She  promised." 

"S  'posing  the  cars  run  off  the  track  so  she 
can't?"  Daisy  said,  cheerfully. 

"She'll  come,"  Murray  rejoined,  with  the 
decision  of  faith.  "She  promised,  I  said." 

"S 'posing  she's  killed  'most  dead?" 

"She'll  come." 

' '  Puffickly  dead — s  'posing  ? ' ' 

Murray  took  time,  but  even  here  his  faith 
in  the  Promise  stood  its  ground,  though  the 
ground  shook  under  it.  Sheelah  had  taught 
him  what  a  promise  was;  it  was  something 
not  to  be  shaken  or  killed  even  in  a  railroad 
wreck. 

"When  anybody  promises,  they  do  it,"  he 
116 


"MURRAY  HAD  .  .  .  SEEN  THE  VISION,  TOO" 


The  Promise 

said,  sturdily.  "She  promised  an'  she'll 
come." 

"Then  her  angel  will  have  to  come,"  re- 
marked the  older,  girl  child,  coolly,  with 
awful  use  of  the  indicative  mood. 

When  the  half -hour  was  over  and  Murray 
at  liberty,  he  went  in  to  the  clock  and  stood 
before  it  with  hands  a-pocket  and  wide- 
spread legs.  A  great  yearning  was  upon 
him  to  know  the  mystery  of  telling  time. 
He  wished — oh,  how  he  wished  he  had  let 
Sheelah  teach  him!  Then  he  could  have 
stood  here  making  little  addition  sums  and 
finding  out  just  how  long  it  would  be  till 
night.  Or  he  could  go  away  and  keep  com- 
ing back  here  to  make  little  subtraction 
sums,  to  find  out  how  much  time  was  left 
now — and  now — and  now.  It  was  dreadful 
to  just  stand  and  wonder  things. 

Once  he  went  up-stairs  to  his  own  little 
room  out  of  the  nursery  and  sat  down  where 
he  had  always  sat  when  Sheelah  unlaced 
him,  before  he  had  begun  to  unlace  himself, 
and  stood  up  where  he  had  always  stood 
when  Sheelah  unbuttoned  him.  He  sat  very 
117 


The  Very  Small   Person 

still  and  stood  very  still,  his  grave  little  face 
intent  with  imagining.  He  was  imagining 
how  it  would  be  when  she  did  it.  She  would 
be  right  here,  close — if  he  dared,  he  could 
put  out  his  hand  and  smooth  her.  If  he 
dared,  he  could  take  the  pins  out  of  her  soft 
hair,  and  hide  in  it — 

He  meant  to  dare! 

"Little  silly,"  perhaps  she  would  call  him; 
perhaps  she  would  remember  to  kiss  him 
good-night.  And  afterwards,  when  the  lark 
was  over,  it  would  stay  on,  singing  in  his 
heart.  And  he  would  lie  in  the  dark  and 
love  Her. 

For  Her  part,  it  was  a  busy  day  enough 
and  did  not  lag.  She  did  her  shopping  and 
called  on  a  town  friend  or  two.  In  the  late 
afternoon  she  ran  in  to  several  art-stores 
where  pictures  were  on  exhibition.  It  was 
at  the  last  of  these  places  that  she  chanced 
to  meet  a  woman  who  was  a  neighbor  of 
hers  in  the  suburbs. 

"Why,  Mrs.  Cody!"  the  neighbor  cried. 
"How  delightful!  You've  come  in  to  see 
Irving,  too?" 

118 


The  Promise 

"No,"  with  distinct  regret  answered  Mur- 
ray's mother,  "but  I  wish  I  had!  I'm  only 
in  for  a  little  shopping." 

"Not  going  to  stay!  Why,  it  will  be 
wicked  to  go  back  to-night — unless,  of  course, 
you've  seen  him  in  Robespierre." 

"I  haven't.  Cicely  Howe  has  been  teas- 
ing me  to  stop  over  and  go  with  her.  It's 
a  'sure-enough'  temptation,  as  Fred  says. 
Fred's  away,  so  that  part's  all  right.  Of 
course  there's  Murray,  but  there's  also  Shee- 
lah — "  She  was  talking  more  to  herself 
now  than  to  the  neighbor.  The  tempta- 
tion had  taken  a  sudden  and  striking  hold 
upon  her.  It  was  the  chance  of  a  lifetime. 
She  really  ought — 

"I  guess  you'll  stop  over!"  laughed  the 
neighbor.  "  I  know  the  signs. " 

"I'll  telephone  to  Sheelah,"  Murray's 
mother  decided,  aloud,  "then  I'll  run  along 
back  to  Cicely's.  I've  always  wanted  to  see 
Irving  in  that  play." 

But  it  was  seven  o'clock  before  she  tele- 
phoned. She  was  to  have  been  at  home  at 
half -past  seven. 

119 


The  Very  Small  Person 

"That  you,  Sheelah?  I'm  not  coming 
out  to-night — not  until  morning.  I'm  going 
to  the  theatre.  Tell  Murray  I'll  bring  him  a 
present.  Put  an  extra  blanket  over  him  if 
it  comes  up  chilly." 

She  did  not  hang  up  the  receiver  at  once, 
holding  it  absently  at  her  ear  while  she  con- 
sidered if  she  ought  to  say  anything  else  to 
Sheelah.  Hence  she  heard  distinctly  an  in- 
dignant exclamation. 

"Will  you  hear  that,  now!  An'  the  boy 
that  certain!  'She's  promised,'  he  says,  an' 
he'll  kape  on  'She's-promising'  for  all  o'  me, 
for  it's  not  tell  him  I  will!  He  can  go  to 
slape  in  his  poor  little  boots,  expectin'  her 
to  kape  her  promise!" 

The  woman  with  the  receiver  at  her  ear 
uttered  a  low  exclamation.  She  had  not 
forgotten  the  Promise,  but  it  had  not  im- 
pressed her  as  anything  vital.  She  had  given 
it  merely  to  comfort  Little  Silly  when  he 
cried.  That  he  would  regard  it  as  sacred — 
that  it  was  sacred — came  to  her  now  with 
the  forcible  impact  of  a  blow.  And,  oddly 
enough,  close  upon  its  heels  came  a  remem- 
120 


The  Promise 

brance  picture — of  a  tiny  child  playing  with 
his  soldiers  on  the  floor.  The  sunlight  lay 
over  him — she  could  see  it  on  his  little  hair 
and  face.  She  could  hear  him  talking  to  the 
"Captain  soldier."  She  had  at  the  time 
called  it  a  sermon,  with  a  text,  and  laughed 
at  the  child  who  preached  it.  She  was  not 
laughing  now. 

"Lissen,  Cappen  Sojer,  an'  I'll  teach  you 
a  p'omise.  A  p'omise  —  a  p'omise  —  why, 
when  anybody  p'omises,  they  do  it!" 

Queer  how  plainly  she  could  hear  Little 
Silly  say  that  and  could  see  him  sitting  in 
the  sun!  Just  the  little  white  dress  he  had 
on — tucks  in  it  and  a  dainty  edging  of  lace! 
She  had  recognized  Sheelah's  maxims  and 
laughed.  Sheelah  was  stuffing  the  child  with 
notions. 

"If  anybody  p'omises,  they  do  it."  It 
seemed  to  come  to  her  over  the  wire  in  a 
baby's  voice  and  to  strike  against  her  heart. 
This  mother  of  a  little  son  stood  suddenly 
self -convicted  of  a  crime — the  crime  of  faith- 
lessness. It  was  not,  she  realized  with  a 
sharp  stab  of  pain,  faith  in  her  the  little 

121 


The  Very  Small   Person 

child  at  the  other  end  of  the  line  was  exer- 
cising, but  faith  in  the  Promise.  He  would 
keep  on  "She-promising"  till  he  fell  asleep 
in  his  poor  little  boots — 

"Oh!"  breathed  in  acute  distress  the 
mother  of  a  little  son.  For  all  unexpectedly, 
suddenly,  her  house  built  of  cards  of  careless- 
ness, flippancy,  thoughtlessness,  had  fallen 
round  her.  She  struggled  among  the  flimsy 
ruins. 

Then  came  a  panic  of  hurry.  She  must 
go  home  at  once,  without  a  moment's  delay. 
A  little  son  was  waiting  for  her  to  come  and 
put  him  to  bed.  She  had  promised ;  he  was 
waiting.  They  were  to  have  a  regular  little 
lark — that  she  remembered,  too,  with  dis- 
tinctness. She  was  almost  as  uncertain  as 
Murray  had  been  of  the  meaning  of  a  "  lark  "; 
she  had  used  the  word,  as  she  had  used  so 
many  other  words  to  the  child,  heedlessly. 
She  had  even  an  odd,  uncertain  little  feeling 
as  to  what  it  meant  to  put  a  little  son  to  bed, 
for  she  had  never  unlaced  or  unbuttoned 
one.  She  had  never  wanted  to  until  now. 
But  now — she  could  hardly  wait  to  get  home 

122 


The  Promise 

to  do  it.  Little  Silly  was  growing  up — the 
bare  brown  space  between  the  puffs  of  his 
little  trousers  and  the  top  rims  of  his  little 
socks  were  widening.  She  must  hurry, 
hurry!  What  if  he  grew  up  before  she  got 
there!  What  if  she  never  had  a  chance  to 
put  a  little  son  to  bedi  She  had  lost  so 
many  chances;  this  one  that  was  left  had 
suddenly  sprung  into  prominence  and  im- 
mense value.  With  the  shock  of  her  awak- 
ening upon  her  she  felt  like  one  partially 
paralyzed,  but  with  the  need  upon  her  to 
rise  and  walk — to  run. 

She  started  at  once,  scarcely  allowing  her- 
self time  to  explain  to  her  friend.  She  would 
listen  to  no  urgings  at  all. 

"I've  got  to  go,  Cicely — I've  promised  my 
little  son,"  was  all  she  took  time  to  say;  and 
the  friend,  knowing  of  the  telephone  message, 
supposed  it  had  been  a  telephone  promise. 

At  the  station  they  told  her  there  was  an- 
other train  at  seven-thirty,  and  she  walked 
about  uneasily  until  it  came.  Walking  about 
seemed  to  hurry  it  along  the  rails  to  her. 

Another  woman  waited  and  walked  with 
123 


The  Very  Small   Person 

her.  Another  mother  of  little  sons,  she  de- 
cided whimsically,  reading  it  in  the  sweet, 
quiet  face.  The  other  woman  was  in  widow's 
black,  and  she  thought  how  merciful  it  was 
that  there  should  be  a  little  son  left  her. 
She  yielded  to  an  inclination  to  speak. 

"The  train  is  late,"  she  said.  "It  must 
be." 

"No."  The  other  woman  glanced  back- 
ward at  the  station  clock.  "It's  we  who  are 
early." 

"And  in  a  hurry,"  laughed  Murray's 
mother,  in  the  relief  of  speech.  "I've  got 
to  get  home  to  put  my  little  son  to  bed! 
I  don't  suppose  you  are  going  home  for 
that?" 

The  sweet  face  for  an  instant  lost  its  quiet- 
ness. Something  like  a  spasm  of  mortal 
pain  crossed  it  and  twisted  it.  The  woman 
walked  away  abruptly,  but  came  back. 
"I've  been  home  and — put  him  to  bed,"  she 
said,  slowly — "in  his  last  little  bed." 

Then  Murray's  mother  found  herself  hurry- 
ing feverishly  into  a  car,  her  face  feeling  wet 
and  queer.     She  was  crying. 
124 


The  Promise 

"Oh,  the  poor  woman!"  she  thought,  "the 
poor  woman!  And  I'm  going  home  to  a 
little  live  one.  I  can  cover  him  up  and  tuck 
him  in !  I  can  kiss  his  little,  solemn  face  and 
his  little,  brown  knees.  Why  haven't  I  ever 
kissed  his  knees  before?  If  I  could  only 
hurry!  Will  this  car  ever  start?"  She  put 
her  head  out  of  the  window.  An  oily  per- 
sonage in  jumpers  was  passing. 

"Why  don't  we  start?"  she  said. 

"Hot  box,"  the  oily  person  replied,  lacon- 
ically. 

The  delay  was  considerable  to  a  mother 
going  home  to  put  her  little  child  to  bed. 
It  seemed  to  this  mother  interminable. 
When  at  length  she  felt  a  welcome  jar  and 
lurch  her  patience  was  threadbare.  She  sat 
bolt  upright,  as  if  by  so  doing  she  were  help- 
ing things  along. 

It  was  an  express  and  leaped  ahead  splen- 
didly, catching  up  with  itself.  Her  thoughts 
leaped  ahead  with  it.  No,  no,  he  would  not 
be  in  bed.  Sheelah  was  not  going  to  tell 
him,  so  he  would  insist  upon  waiting  up. 
But  she  might  find  him  asleep  in  his  poor 
I25 


The  Very  Small   Person 

little  boots!     She  caught  her  breath  in  half 
a  sob,  half  tender  laugh.     Little  Silly! 

But  if  an  express,  why  this  stop?  They 
were  slowing  up.  It  was  not  time  to  get  to 
the  home  station;  there  were  no  lights. 
Murray's  mother  waylaid  a  passing  brake- 
man. 

"What  is  it?     What  is  it?" 

"All  right,  all  right!  Don't  be  scairt, 
lady!  Wreck  ahead  somewheres  —  freight- 
train.  We  got  to  wait  till  they  clear  the 
track." 

But  the  misery  of  waiting!  He  might  get 
tired  of  waiting,  or  Sheelah  might  tell  him 
his  mother  was  not  coming  out  to-night ;  he 
might  go  to  bed,  with  his  poor  little  faith  in 
the  Promise  wrecked,  like  the  freight  on  there 
in  the  dark.  She  could  not  sit  still  and  bear 
the  thought;  it  was  not  much  easier  pacing 
the  aisle.  She  felt  a  wild  inclination  to  get 
off  the  train  and  walk  home. 

At  the  home  station,  when  at  last  she 
reached  it,  she  took  a  carriage.  "Drive 
fast!"  she  said,  peremptorily.  "I'll  pay  you 
double  fare." 

126 


The  Promise 

The  houses  they  rattled  past  were  ablaze 
with  light  down-stairs,  not  up-stairs  where 
little  sons  would  be  going  to  bed.  All  the 
little  sons  had  gone  to  bed. 

They  stopped  with  a  terrific  lurch.  It 
threw  her  onto  the  seat  ahead. 

"This  is  not  the  place!"  she  cried,  sharply, 
after  a  glance  without. 

"No'm;  we're  stopping  fer  recreation," 
drawled  sarcastically  the  unseen  driver.  He 
appeared  to  be  assisting  the  horse  to  lie 
down.  She  stumbled  to  the  ground  and 
demanded  things. 

"Yer'll  have  to  ax  this  here  four-legged 
party  what's  doin'.  /  didn't  stop — I  kep' 
right  on  goin'.  He  laid  down  on  his  job, 
that's  all,  marm.  I'll  get  him  up,  come 
Chris 'mas.  Now  then,  yer  ole  fool!" 

There  was  no  patience  left  in  the  "fare" 
standing  there  beside  the  plunging  beast. 
She  fumbled  in  her  purse,  found  something, 
dropped  it  somewhere,  and  hurried  away 
down  the  street.  She  did  not  walk  home, 
because  she  ran.  It  was  well  the  streets 
were  quiet  ones. 

127 


The  Very  Small   Person 

"Has  he  gone  to  bed?"  she  came  panting 
in  upon  drowsy  Sheelah,  startling  that  phleg- 
matic person  out  of  an  honest  Irish  dream. 

"Murray  —  Little  Silly  —  has  he  gone  to 
bed?  Oh  no!"  for  she  saw  him  then,  an 
inert  little  heap  at  Sheelah 's  feet.  She  gath- 
ered him  up  in  her  arms. 

"I  won't!  I  won't  go,  Sheelah!  I'm 
waiting.  She  promis —  "  in  drowsy  murmur. 

"She's  here — she's  come,  Murray!  Mam- 
ma's come  home  to  put  you  to  bed — Little 
Silly,  open  your  eyes  and  see  mamma!" 

And  he  opened  them  and  saw  the  love  in 
her  eyes  before  he  saw  her.  Sleep  took 
instant  wings.  He  sprang  up. 

"I  knew  you'd  come!  I  told  Sheelah! 
When  anybody  promises,  they —  Come  on 
quick  up-stairs!  I  can  unlace  myself,  but 
I'd  rather—" 

"Yes,  yes!"  she  sobbed. 

"And  we'll  have  a  lark,  won't  we?  You 
said  a  lark;  but  not  the  reg'larest  kind — I 
don't  suppose  we  could  have  the  reg'larest 
kind?" 

"Yes— yes!" 

128 


The  Promise 

"Oh! — why!"  His  eyes  shone.  He  put 
up  his  hand,  then  drew  it  shyly  back.  If  she 
would  only  take  out  the  pins  herself — if  he 
only  dared  to — 

' '  What  is  it,  Little  Silly— darling  ?"  They 
were  up  in  his  room.  She  had  her  cheek 
against  his  little,  bare,  brown  knees.  It 
brought  her  soft,  gold-colored  hair  so  near — 
if  he  only  dared — 

"What  is  it  you'd  like,  little  son?"  And 
he  took  courage.  She  had  never  called  him 
Little  Son  before.  It  made  him  brave 
enough. 

"  I  thought — the  reg'larest  kind — your  hair 
—if  you'd  let  it  tumble  all  down,  I'd — hide 
in  it,"  he  breathed,  his  knees  against  her 
cheek  trembling  like  little  frightened  things. 

It  fell  about  him  in  a  soft  shower  and  he 
hid  in  it  and  laughed.  Sheelah  heard  them 
laughing  together. 


CHAPTER    IX 

The  Little  Lover 


The   Little   Lover 


WISH  I  knew  for  very  cer- 
tain," the  Little  Lover  mur- 
mured, wistfully.  The  lico- 
rice-stick was  so  shiny  and 
black,  and  he  had  laid  his 
tongue  on  it  one  sweet  in- 
stant, so  he  knew  just  how  good  it  tasted. 
If  he  only  knew  for  very  certain — of  course 
there  was  a  chance  that  She  did  not  love 
licorice  sticks.  It  would  be  a  regular  pity 
to  waste  it.  Still,  how  could  anybody  not 
love  'em — 

"'Course  She  does!"  exclaimed  the  Little 
Lover,  with  sudden  conviction,  and  the 
struggle  was  ended.  It  had  only  been  a 
question  of  Her  liking  or  not  liking.  That 
decided,  there  was  no  further  hesitation. 


The  Very  Small  Person 

He  held  up  the  licorice-stick  and  traced  a 
wavery  little  line  round  it  with  his  finger- 
nail. The  line  was  pretty  near  one  of  its 
ends — the  end  towards  the  Little  Lover's 
mouth. 

"I'll  suck  as  far  down  as  that,  just  'xactly," 
he  said ;  "then  I'll  put  it  away  in  the  Treasury 
Box." 

He  sat  down  in  his  little  rocker  and  gave 
himself  up  to  the  moment's  bliss,  first  apply- 
ing his  lips  with  careful  exactitude  to  the 
dividing-line  between  Her  licorice  stick  and 
his. 

The  moment  of  bliss  ended,  the  Little 
Lover  got  out  the  Treasury  Box  and  added 
the  moist,  shortened  licorice  -  stick  to  the 
other  treasures  in  it.  There  were  many  of 
them, — an  odd  assortment  that  would  have 
made  any  one  else  smile.  But  the  Little 
Lover  was  not  smiling.  His  small  face  was 
grave  first,  then  illumined  with  the  light  of 
willing  sacrifice.  The  treasures  were  all  so 
beautiful!  She  would  be  so  pleased, — my, 
my,  how  pleased  She  would  be!  Of  course 
She  would  like  the  big  golden  alley  the  best, 


The  Little  Lover 

— the  very  best.  But  the  singing-top  was 
only  a  tiny  little  way  behind  in  its  power  to 
charm.  Perhaps  She  had  never  seen  a  sing- 
ing-top— think  o'  that!  Perhaps  She  had 
never  had  a  great  golden  alley,  or  a  cork- 
screw jack-knife,  or  a  canary-bird  whistle, 
or  a  red  and  white  "Kandy  Kiss," — or  a 
licorice-stick!  Think  o'  that — think  o'  how 
pleased  She  would  be! 

"'Course  She  will,"  laughed  the  Little 
Lover  in  his  delight.  If  he  only  dared  to 
give  Her  the  Treasury  Box!  If  he  only  knew 
how!  If  there  was  somebody  he  could  ask, 
— but  the  housekeeper  was  too  old,  and 
Uncle  Larry  would  laugh.  There  was  no- 
body. 

The  waiting  wouldn't  be  so  bad  if  it  wasn't 
for  the  red-cheeked  pear  in  the  Treasury  Box, 
and  the  softest  apple.  They  made  it  a  little 
dang'rous  to  wait. 

It  had  not  been  very  long  that  he  had 
loved  Her.  The  first  Sunday  that  She  smiled 
at  him  across  the  aisle  was  the  beginning. 
He  had  not  gone  to  sleep  that  Sunday,  nor 
since,  on  any  of  the  smiling  Sundays.  He 


The  Very  Small  Person 

had  not  wanted  to.  It  had  been  rest  enough 
to  sit  and  watch  Her  from  the  safe  shelter  of 
the  housekeeper's  silken  cloak.  Her  clear, 
fresh  profile,  Her  pretty  hair,  Her  ear,  Her 
throat — he  liked  to  watch  them  all.  It  was 
rest  enough, — as  if,  after  that,  he  could  have 
gone  to  sleep! 

She  was  very  tall,  but  he  liked  her  better 
for  that.  He  meant  to  be  tall  some  day. 
Just  now  he  did  not  reach —  But  he  did  not 
wish  to  think  of  that.  It  troubled  him  to 
remember  that  Sunday  that  he  had  measured 
himself  secretly  beside  Her,  as  the  people 
walked  out  of  church.  It  made  him  blush 
to  think  how  very  little  way  he  had  "reach- 
ed." He  had  never  told  any  one,  but  then 
he  never  told  any  one  anything.  Not  having 
any  mother,  and  your  father  being  away  all 
the  time,  and  the  housekeeper  being  old,  and 
your  uncle  Larry  always  laughing,  made  it 
diff'rent  'bout  telling  things.  Of  course  if 
you  had  'em — mothers,  and  fathers  that 
stayed  at  home,  and  uncles  that  didn't  laugh, 
— but  you  didn't.  So  you  'cided  it  was  bet- 
ter not  to  tell  things. 

136 


The  Little  Lover 

One  Sunday  the  Little  Lover  thought  he 
detected  Uncle  Larry  watching  Her  too. 
But  he  was  never  quite  certain  sure.  Any- 
way, when  She  had  turned  Her  beautiful 
head  and  smiled  across  the  aisle,  it  had  been 
at  him.  The  Little  Lover  was  "certain 
sure"  of  that!  In  his  shy  little  way  he 
had  smiled  back  at  Her  and  nodded.  The 
warmth  had  kept  on  in  his  heart  all  day. 
That  was  the  day  before  he  found  out  the 
Important  Thing. 

Out  in  the  front  hall  after  supper  he  came 
upon  a  beautiful,  tantalizing  smell  that  he 
failed  for  some  time  to  locate.  He  went 
about  with  his  little  nose  up-tilted,  in  a  per- 
sistent search.  It  was  such  a  beautiful 
smell ! — not  powerful  and  oversweet,  but  faint 
and  wonderful.  The  little  nose  searched 
on  patiently  till  it  found  it.  There  was  a 
long  box  on  the  hall-table  and  the  beautiful 
smell  came  out  under  the  lid  and  met  the 
little,  up-tilted  nose  half-way. 

"I've  found  it!  It's  inside  o'  that  box!" 
the  Little  Lover  cried  in  triumph.  "Now  I 
guess  I  better  see  what  it  looks  like.  Oh! 


The  Very  Small  Person 

why,  it's  posies!"  For  there,  in  moist  tissue 
wrappings,  lay  a  cluster  of  marvellous  pale 
roses,  breathing  out  their  subtle  sweetness 
into  the  little  face  above  them. 

"Why,  I  didn't  know  that  was  the  way  a 
beautiful  smell  looked!  I — it's  very  nice, 
isn't  it?  If  it's  Uncle  Larry's,  I'm  goin'  to 
ask  him —  Oh,  Uncle  Larry,  can  I  have  it  ? 
Can  I  ?  I  want  to  put  it  in  Her — "  But  he 
caught  himself  up  before  he  got  quite  to 
"Treasury  Box."  He  could  not  tell  Uncle 
Larry  about  that. 

The  tall  figure  coming  down  the  hall 
quickened  its  steps  to  a  leap  towards  the 
opened  box  on  the  table.  Uncle  Larry's  face 
was  flushed,  but  he  laughed  —  he  always 
laughed. 

"You  little  'thafe  o'  the  wurruld'!"  he 
called  out.  "What  are  you  doing  with  my 
roses?" 

"I  want  'em — please,"  persisted  the  child, 
eagerly,  thinking  of  the  Treasury  Box  and 
Her.  " 

"Oh,  you  do,  do  you?  But  they're  not 
for  the  likes  o'  you." 

138 


The  Little  Lover 

Sudden  inspiration  came  to  the  Little 
Lover.  If  this  was  a  Treasury  Box, — if  he 
were  right  on  the  edge  of  finding  out  how 
you  gave  one — 

"Is — is  it  for  a  She?"  he  asked,  breathless 
with  interest. 

"A— 'She'?"  laughed  Uncle  Larry,  but 
something  as  faint  and  tender  as  the  beauti- 
ful smell  was  creeping  into  his  face.  "Yes, 
it  is  for  a  She,  Reggie, — the  most  beautiful 
She  in  the  world,"  he  added,  gently.  He 
was  wrapping  the  beautiful  smell  again  in 
the  tissue  wrappings. 

Then  it  was  a  Treasury  Box.  Then  you 
did  the  treasures  up  that  way,  in  thin,  rattly 
paper  like  that.  Then  what  did  you  do? 
But  he  would  find  out. 

"Oh,  I  didn't  know,"  he  murmured.  "I 
didn't  know  that  was  the  way!  Do  you  send 
it  by  the  'spressman,  then,  Uncle  Larry,— 
to — to  Her,  you  know  ?  With  Her  name  on  ?" 

Uncle  Larry  was  getting  into  his  overcoat. 
He  laughed.  The  tender  light  that  had  been 
for  an  instant  in  his  face  he  had  put  away 
again  out  of  sight. 

139 


The  Very  Small   Person 

"No;  I'm  my  own  "spressman. '  You've 
got  some  things  to  learn,  Reg,  before  you 
grow  up." 

"I'd  rawer  learn  'em  now.  Tell  me  'em! 
Tell  what  you  do  then." 

The  old  mocking  light  was  back  in  Uncle 
Larry's  eyes.  This  small  chap  with  the 
earnest  little  face  was  good  as  a  play. 

' ' '  Then '  ?  Then,  sure,  I  go  to  the  door 
and  ring  the  bell.  Then  I  kneel  on  one  knee 
like  this,  and  hold  out  the  box — " 

"The  Treasury  Box — yes,  go  on." 

" — Like  this.  And  I  say,  'Fair  One,  ac- 
cept this  humble  offering,  I  beseech  thee'— 

"Accept  this  hum-bul  offering,  I — I  be- 
seech thee" — the  Little  Lover  was  saying  it 
over  and  over  to  himself.  It  was  a  little 
hard,  on  account  o'  the  queer  words  in  it. 
He  was  still  saying  it  after  Uncle  Larry  had 
gone.  His  small  round  face  was  intent  and 
serious.  When  he  had  learned  the  words,  he 
practised  getting  down  on  one  knee  and 
holding  out  an  imaginary  Treasury  Box. 
That  was  easier  than  the  queer  words,  but  it 
made  you  feel  funnier  somewhere  in  your 
140 


The  Little  Lover 

inside.  You  wanted  to  cry,  and  you  were 
a  little  afraid  somebody  else  would  want  to 
laugh. 

The  next  afternoon  the  Little  Lover  car- 
ried his  Treasury  Box  to  Her.  He  had 
wrapped  all  the  little  treasures  carefully  in 
tissue  like  Uncle  Larry's  roses.  But  there 
was  no  beautiful  smell  creeping  out; — there 
was  something  a  little  like  a  smell,  but  not 
a  beautiful  one.  The  Little  Lover  felt  sorry 
for  that. 

She  came  to  the  door.  It  was  a  little  dis- 
composing on  account  of  there  being  so  little 
time  to  get  your  breath  in.  I-It  made  you 
feel  funny. 

But  the  Little  Lover  acted  well  his  part. 
With  a  little  gasp  that  was  like  a  sob  he  sank 
on  one  knee  and  held  up  the  Treasury  Box 
to  Her. 

"Fair  One,"  he  quivered,  softly,  "ac- 
cept this] — this  offspring — no,  I  mean  this 
hum  -  bul  offspring,  I  —  I  —  oh,  I  mean 
please!" 

She  stooped  to  the  level  of  his  little,  solemn 
face.  Then  suddenly  She  lifted  him,  Treas- 
141 


The  Very  Small   Person 

ury  Box  and  all,  and  bore  him  into  a  great, 
bright  room. 

"Why,  Reggie!  —  you  are  Reggie,  aren't 
you?  You're  the  little  boy  that  smiles  at 
me  across  the  aisle  in  church  ?  I  thought  so ! 
Well,  I  am  so  glad  you  have  come  to  see  me. 
And  to  think  you  have  brought  me  a  present, 
too—" 

"I  be -seech  thee!"  quivered  the  Little 
Lover,  suddenly  remembering  the  queer 
words  that  had  eluded  him  before.  He  drew 
a  long,  happy  breath.  It  was  over  now. 
She  had  the  Treasury  Box  in  her  hand.  She 
would  open  it  by-and-by  and  find  the  golden 
alley  and  the  singing-top  and  the  licorice- 
stick.  He  wished  he  dared  tell  Her  to  open 
it  soon  on  account  o'  the  softest  apple  and 
the  red -cheeked  pear.  Perhaps  he  would 
dare  to  after  a  little  while.  It  was  so  much 
easier,  so  far,  than  he  had  expected. 

She  talked  to  him  in  Her  beautiful,  low- 
toned  voice,  and  by-and-by  She  sat  down  to 
the  piano  and  sang  to  him.  That  was  the 
ve-ry  best.  He  curled  up  on  the  sofa  and 
listened,  watching  Her  clear  profile  and  Her 
142 


The  Little  Lover 

hair  and  Her  pretty  moving  fingers,  in  his 
Little  Lover  way.  She  looked  so  beautiful! 
— it  made  you  want  to  put  your  cheek 
against  Her  sleeve  and  rub  it  very  softly 
back  and  forth,  back  and  forth,  over  and 
over  again.  If  you  only  dared  to! 

So  he  was  very  happy  until  he  smelled 
the  beautiful  smell  again.  All  at  once  it 
crept  to  him  across  the  room.  He  recog- 
nized it  instantly  as  the  same  one  that  had 
crept  out  from  under  the  lid  of  Uncle  Larry's 
box.  It  was  there,  in  the  great,  bright  room! 
He  slid  to  his  feet  and  went  about  tracing  it 
with  his  little  up -tilted  nose.  It  led  him 
across  to  Her,  and  then  he  saw  Uncle  Larry's 
roses  on  Her  breast.  He  uttered  the  softest 
little  cry  of  pain — so  soft  She  did  not  hear  it 
in  Her  song — -and  crept  back  to  his  seat. 
He  had  had  his  first  wound.  He  was  only 
six,  but  at  six  it  hurts. 

It  was  Uncle  Larry's  roses  She  wore  on 
Her  dress — then  it  was  roses  She  liked,  not 
licorice  -  sticks  and  golden  alleys.  Then  it 
was  Uncle  Larry's  roses, — then  She  must  like 
Uncle  Larry.  Then — oh,  then,  She  would 
143 


The  Very  Small   Person 

never  like  himl  Perhaps  it  was  Uncle  Larry 
She  had  smiled  at  all  the  time,  across  the 
aisle.  Uncle  Larry  "reached"  so  far!  He 
wouldn't  have  to  grow. 

"She  b 'longs  to  Uncle  Larry,  an'  I  wanted 
Her  to  b'long  to  me.  Nobody  else  does — I 
wouldn't  have  needed  anybody  else  to,  if 
She  had.  All  I  needed  to  b'long  was  Her. 
I  wanted  Her!  I — I  love  Her.  She  isn't 
Uncle  Larry's  —  she's  mine!  —  She's  mine!" 
The  thoughts  of  the  Little  Lover  surged  on 
turbulently,  while  the  beautiful  low  song 
went  on.  She  was  singing — She  was  singing 
to  Uncle  Larry.  The  song  wasn't  sweet  and 
soft  and  tender  for  him.  It  was  sweet  and 
soft  and  tender  for  Uncle  Larry. 

"I  hate  Uncle  Larry!"  cried  out  the  Little 
Lover,  but  She  did  not  hear.  She  was  lost 
in  the  tender  depths  of  the  song.  It  was 
very  late  in  the  afternoon  and  a  still  dark- 
ness was  creeping  into  the  big,  bright  room. 
The  Little  Lover  nestled  among  the  cushions 
of  the  sofa,  spent  with  excitement  and  loss, 
and  that  new,  dread  feeling  that  made  him 
hate  Uncle  Larry.  He  did  not  know  its 
144 


The  Little  Lover 

name,  and  it  was  better  so.  But  he  knew 
the  pain  of  it. 

' '  Why,  Reggie !  Why,  you  poor  little  man, 
you're  asleep!  And  I  have  been  sitting  there 
singing  all  this  time!  And  it  grew  quite 
dark,  didn't  it?  Oh,  poor  little  man,  poor 
little  man,  I  had  forgotten  you  were  here! 
I'm  glad  you  can't  hear  me  say  it!" 

Yes,  it  was  better.  But  he  would  have 
liked  to  feel  Her  cool  cheek  against  his 
cheek;  he  would  have  felt  a  little  relief  in 
his  desolate,  bitter  heart  if  he  could  see 
how  gentle  Her  face  was  and  the  beautiful 
look  there  was  in  Her  soft  eyes.  But  per- 
haps—  if  She  was  not  looking  at  him — if  it 
was  'at  Uncle  Larry —  No,  no,  Little  Lov- 
er; it  is  better  to  sleep  on  and  not  to 
know. 

It  was  Uncle  Larry  who  carried  him  home, 
asleep  still,  and  laid  him  gently  on  his  own 
little  bed.  Uncle  Larry's  bearded  face  was 
shining  in  the  dark  room  like  a  star.  The 
tumult  of  joy  in  the  man's  heart  clamored 
for  utterance.  Uncle  Larry  felt  the  need  of 
telling  some  one.  So,  because  he  could  not 
US 


The  Very  Small  Person 

help  it,  he  leaned  down  and  shook  the  Little 
Lover  gently. 

"You  little  foolish  chap,  do  you  know 
what  you  have  lost?  You  were  right  there 
— you  might  have  heard  Her  when  She  said 
it!  You  might  have  peeped  between  your 
fingers  and  seen  Her  face — angels  in  Heaven! 
Her  face! — with  the  love-light  in  it.  You 
poor  little  chap!  you  poor  little  chap!  You 
were  right  there  all  the  time  and  you  didn't 
know.  And  you  don't  know  now  when  I 
tell  you  I'm  the  happiest  man  alive!  You 
lie  there  like  a  little  log.  Well,  sleep  away, 
little  chap.  What  does  it  matter  to  you?" 

It  was  the  Little  Lover's  own  guardian- 
angel  who  kept  him  from  waking  up,  but 
Uncle  Larry  did  not  know.  He  took  off  the 
small,  dusty  shoes  and  loosened  the  little 
clothes,  with  a  strange  new  tenderness  in  his 
big  fingers.  The  familiar  little  figure  seemed 
to  have  put  on  a  certain  sacredness  for  hav- 
ing lain  on  Her  cushions  and  been  touched 
by  Her  hands.  And  She  had  kissed  the 
little  chap.  Uncle  Larry  stooped  and  found 
the  place  with  his  lips. 
146 


The  Little  Lover 

The  visit  seemed  like  a  dream  to  the  Little 
Lover,  next  morning.  How  could  it  have 
been  real  when  he  could  not  remember  com- 
ing home  at  all  ?  He  hadn't  come  home, — so 
of  course  he  had  never  gone.  It  was  a  dream, 
— still — where  was  the  Treasury  Box  ? 

"  I  wish  I  knew  for  very  certain,"  the  Little 
Lover  mused.  "I  could  ask  Uncle  Larry, 
but  I  hate  Uncle  Larry—"  Oh!  Then  it 
wasn't  a  dream.  It  was  true.  It  all  came 
back.  The  Little  Lover  remembered  why 
he  hated  Uncle  Larry.  He  remembered  it 
all.  Lying  there  in  his  little  bed  he  smelled 
the  beautiful  smell  again  and  followed  it  up 
to  the  roses  on  Her  dress.  They  were  Uncle 
Larry's  roses,  so  he  hated  Uncle  Larry.  He 
always  would.  He  did  not  hate  Her,  but 
he  would  never  go  to  see  Her  again.  He 
would  never  nod  or  smile  at  Her  again  in 
church.  He  would  never  be  happy  again. 

Perhaps  She  would  send  back  the  Treasury 
Box; — the  Little  Lover  had  heard  once  that 
people  sent  back  things  when  it  was  all  over. 
It  was  all  over  now.  He  was  only  six,  but 
the  pain  in  his  heart  was  so  big  that  he  did 

11  147 


The  Very  Small  Person 

not  think  to  wish  She  would  send  back  the 
Treasury  Box  soon,  on  account  of  the  softest 
apple. 

The  days  went  by  until  they  made  a 
month,  —  two  months,  —  half  a  year.  The 
pain  in  the  Little  Lover's  heart  softened  to 
a  dreary  loneliness,  but  that  stayed  on.  He 
had  always  been  a  lonely  little  chap,  but 
not  like  this.  He  had  never  had  a  moth- 
er, and  his  father  had  nearly  always  been 
away.  But  this  was  different.  Now  he 
had  nobody  to  love,  and  he  hated  Uncle 
Larry. 

That  was  before  the  Wonderful  Thing 
happened.  One  day  Uncle  Larry  brought 
Her  home.  He  said  She  was  his  wife.  That 
was  the  Wonderful  Thing. 

The  Little  Lover  ran  away  and  hid.  They 
could  not  find  him  for  a  long  time.  It  was 
She  who  found  him. 

"Why,  Reggie!  Why,  poor  little  man! 
Look  up.  What  is  it,  dear?  Reggie,  you 
are  crying!" 

He  did  not  care.     He  wanted  to  cry.     But 
he  let  Her  take  him  into  Her  arms. 
148 


The  Little  Lover 

11 1  wanted  to  do  it!"  he  sobbed,  desolate- 
ly, his  secret  out  at  last. 

"  Do  it  ?     Do  what,  Reggie  ?" 

"M-marry  you.  /  was  goin'  to  do  it. 
H-He  hadn't  any  right  to!  I  hate  him — I 
hate  him!" 

A  minute  there  was  silence,  except  for 
the  soft  creak  of  Her  dress  as  She  rocked 
him.  Then  She  lifted  his  wet  little  face  to 
Hers. 

"Reggie,"  She  whispered,  "how  would  a 
mother  do?" 

He  nestled  his  cheek  against  Her  sleeve 
and  rubbed  it  back  and  forth,  back  and 
forth,  while  he  thought.  A  mother — then 
there  would  be  no  more  loneliness.  Then 
there  would  be  a  place  to  cuddle  in,  and 
somebody  to  tell  things  to.  "I'd  rawer  a 
mother,"  the  Little  Lover  said. 


CHAPTER    X 

The   Child 


The   Child 


[HE  Child  had  it  all  reasoned 
out  in  her  own  way.  It  was 
only  lately  she  had  got  to 
the  end  of  her  reasoning  and 
settled  down.  At  first  it 
had  not  been  very  satisfac- 
tory, but  she  had  gradually,  with  a  child's 
optimism,  evolved  from  the  dreary  little 
maze  a  certain  degree  of  content. 

She  had  only  one  confidant.  The  Child 
had  always  lived  a  rather  proscribed,  un- 
eventful little  life,  with  pitifully  few  inti- 
mates,— none  of  her  own  age.  The  Child 
was  eight. 

The  confidant,  oddly,  was  a  picture  in  the 
silent,  awe-inspiring  company-room.  It  rep- 
resented a  lady  with  a  beautiful  face,  and 


The  Very  Small   Person 

a  baby  in  her  arms.  The  Child  had  never 
heard  it  called  a  Madonna,  but  it  was  be- 
cause of  that  picture  that  she  was  never 
afraid  in  the  company-room.  Going  in  and 
out  so  often  to  confide  things  to  the  Lady 
had  bred  a  familiarity  with  the  silent  place 
that  came  to  amount  in  the  end  to  friendli- 
ness. The  Lady  was  always  there,  smiling 
gently  at  the  Child,  and  so  the  other  things 
did  not  matter — the  silence  and  the  awe- 
inspiringness. 

The  Child  told  the  Lady  everything, 
standing  down  under  the  picture  and  looking 
up  at  it  adoringly.  She  was  explaining  her 
conclusions  concerning  the  Greatest  Thing 
of  All  now. 

"I  didn't  tell  you  before,"  she  said.  "I 
wanted  to  get  it  reasoned  out.  If,"  rather 
wistfully,  "you  were  a — a  flesh-and-bloody 
lady,  you  could  tell  me  if  I  haven't  got  it 
right.  But  I  think  I  have. 

"You  see,  there  are  a  great  many  kinds  of 
fathers  and  mothers,  but  I'm  only  talking  of 
my  kind.  I'm  going  to  love  my  father  one 
day  and  my  mother  the  next.  Like  this: 


The  Child 

my  mother  Monday,  my  father  Tuesday, 
mother  Wednesday,  father  Thursday — right 
along.  Of  course  you  can't  divide  seven 
days  even,  but  I'm  going  to  love  them  both 
on  Sundays.  Just  one  day  in  the  week  I 
don't  think  it  will  do  any  harm,  do  you? — 
Oh,  you  darling  Lady,  I  wish  you  could 
shake  your  head  or  bow  it!  I'm  only  eight, 
you  see,  and  eight  isn't  a  very  reasonable 
age.  But  I  couldn't  think  of  any  better 
way." 

The  Child's  eyes  riveted  to  the  beautiful 
face  almost  saw  it  nod  a  little. 

"I  haven't  decided  'xactly,  but  perhaps 
I  shall  love  my  mother  Sunday  mornings 
and  my  father  Sunday  afternoons.  If — if  it 
seems  best  to.  I'll  let  you  know."  She 
stopped  talking  and  thought  a  minute  in  her 
serious  little  way.  She  was  considering 
whether  to  say  the  next  thing  or  not.  Even 
to  the  Lady  she  had  never  said  why-things 
about  her  father  and  mother.  If  the  Lady 
knew — and  she  had  lived  so  long  in  the  com- 
pany-room, it  seemed  as  if  she  must, — then 
there  was  no  need  of  explaining.  And  if  she 
'55 


The  Very  Small  Person 

didn't  know  —  suddenly  the  Child,  with  a 
throb  of  pride,  hoped  that  the  Lady  did  not 
know.  But  perhaps  some  slight  explanation 
was  necessary. 

"Of  course,"  the  Child  burst  out,  hurriedly, 
her  cheeks  aflame, — "of  course  it  would  be 
nice  to  love  both  of  'em  the  same  day,  but — • 
but  they're  not  that  kind  of  a  father  and 
mother.  I've  thought  it  all  over  and  made 
the  reasonablest  plan  I  know  how  to.  I'm 
going  to  begin  to-morrow  —  to-morrow  is 
Tuesday,  my  father's  day." 

It  was  cold  in  the  company-room,  and  any 
moment  Marie  might  come  and  take  her 
away.  She  was  always  a  little  pressed  for 
time. 

"I  must  be  going,"  she  said,  "or  Marie 
will  come.  Good-bye.  Give  my  love  to  the 
baby. ' '  She  always  sent  her  love  to  the  baby 
in  the  beautiful  Lady's  arms. 

The  Child's  home,  though  luxurious,  had 
to  her  the  effect  of  being  a  double  tene- 
ment. An  invisible  partition  divided  her 
father's  side  from  her  mother's ;  her  own  lit- 
tle white  room,  with  Marie's  alcove,  seemed 
156 


The  Child 

to  be  across  the  dividing-line,  part  on  one 
side,  part  on  the  other.  She  could  remem- 
ber when  there  had  not  been  any  invisible 
partition,  but  the  intensity  of  her  little  men- 
tal life  since  there  had  been  one  had  dimmed 
the  beautiful  remembrance.  It  seemed  to 
her  now  as  a  pleasant  dream  that  she  longed 
to  dream  again. 

The  next  day  the  Child  loved  her  father, 
for  it  was  Tuesday.  She  went  about  it  in 
her  thorough,  conscientious  little  way.  She 
had  made  out  a  little  programme.  At  the 
top  of  the  sheet,  in  her  clear,  upright  hand, 
was, ' '  Ways  to  Love  My  farther. ' '  And  after 
that: 

"  i.  Bringing  in  his  newspaper. 

"2.  Kissing  Him  goodmorning. 

"3.  Rangeing  his  studdy  table. 

"4.  Putting  flours  on  " 

"5.  Takeing  up  His  male. 

"  6.  Reeching  up  to  rub  My  cheak  against 
his  cheak. 

"7.  Lerning  to  read  so  I  can  read  His 
Books." 

There  were  many  other  items.  The  Child 
»S7 


The  Very  Small   Person 

had  used  three  pages  for  her  programme. 
The  last  two  lines  read: 

"Praing  for  Him. 

"Kissing  Him  goodnight." 

The  Wednesday  programme  was  almost 
identical  with  this  one,  with  the  exception 
of  "my  mother"  instead  of  "my  farther." 
For  the  Child  did  not  wish  to  be  partial. 
She  had  always  had  a  secret  notion  that  it 
would  be  a  little  easier  to  read  her  mother's 
books,  but  she  meant  to  read  just  as  many 
of  her  "farther's." 

During  the  morning  she  went  in  to  the 
Lady  and  reported  progress  so  far.  Her 
cheeks  were  a  delicate  pink  with  excitement, 
and  she  panted  a  little  when  she  spoke. 

"I'm  getting  along  splendidly,"  she  said, 
smiling  up  at  the  beautiful  face.  "Perhaps 
— of  course  I  can't  tell  for  sure,  but  I'm  not 
certain  but  that  he  will  like  it  after  he  gets 
used  to  it.  You  have  to  get  used  to  things. 
He  liked  the  flowers,  and  when  I  rubbed  my 
cheek  'gainst  his,  and  when  I  kissed  him. 
How  I  know  he  did  is  because  he  smiled — I 
wish  my  father  would  smile  all  the  time." 
158 


The  Child 

The  Child  did  not  leave  the  room  when  she 
had  finished  her  report,  but  fidgeted  about  the 
great  silent  place  uncertainly.  She  turned 
back  by-and-by  to  the  Lady. 

"There's  something  I  wish  you  could  tell 
me,"  she  said,  with  her  wistful  little  face  up- 
lifted. "It's  if  you  think  it  would  be  polite 
to  ask  my  father  to  put  me  to  bed  instead  of 
Marie — just  unbutton  me,  you  know,  and 
pray  me.  I  was  going  to  ask  my  mother 
to-morrow  night  if  my  father  did  to-night. 
I  thought — I  thought" — the  Child  hesitated 
for  adequate  words — "it  would  be  the  loving- 
est  way  to  love  him,  for  you  feel  a  little 
intimater  with  persons  when  they  put  you 
to  bed.  Sometimes  I  feel  that  way  with 
Marie — a  very  little.  I  wish  you  could  nod 
your  head  if  you  thought  it  would  be 
polite. 

The  Child's  eyes,  fastened  upon  the  picture, 
were  intently  serious.  And  again  the  Lady 
seemed  to  nod. 

"Oh,  you're  nodding,  yes! — I  b'lieve  you're 
nodding  yes!  Thank  you  ve-ry  much — now 
I  shall  ask  him  to.  Good-bye.  Give  my  love 


The  Very  Small  Person 

to  the  baby."  And  the  little  figure  moved 
away  sedately. 

To  ask  him  in  the  manner  of  a  formal 
invitation  with  "yours  very  truly"  in  it  ap- 
peared to  the  Child  upon  thoughtful  delibera- 
tion to  be  the  best  way.  She  did  not  feel 
very  intimate  yet  with  her  father,  but  of 
course  it  might  be  different  after  he  unbut- 
toned her  and  prayed  her. 

Hence  the  formal  invitation: 

"  Dear  farther  you  are  respectably  invited  to  put 
yore  little  girl  to  bed  tonite  at  $  past  7.  Yores 
very  truely  Elizabeth. 

"  R  s  vp. 

"  P.s.  the  little  girl  is  me." 

It  was  all  original  except  the  "R  s  v  p" 
and  the  fraction.  The  Child  had  asked 
Marie  how  to  write  "half,"  and  the  other 
she  had  found  in  the  corner  of  one  of  her 
mother's  formal  invitations.  She  did  not 
know  what  the  four  letters  meant,  but  they 
made  the  invitation  look  nicer,  and  she  could 
make  lovely  capital  "R's." 

At  lunch-time  the  Child  stole  up-stairs  and 
deposited  her  little  folded  note  on  top  of  her 
160 


ELIZABETH 


The  Child 

father's  manuscript.  Her  heart  beat  strange- 
ly fast  as  she  did  it.  She  had  still  a  lurking 
fear  that  it  might  not  be  polite. 

On  the  way  back  she  hurried  into  the  com- 
pany-room, up  to  the  Lady.  "I've  done  it!" 
she  reported,  breathlessly.  "I  hope  it  was 
polite — oh,  I  hope  he  will!" 

The  Child's  father  ate  his  lunch  silently 
and  a  little  hastily,  as  if  to  get  it  over.  On 
the  opposite  side  of  the  table  the  Child's 
mother  ate  hers  silently  and  a  little  hastily. 
It  was  the  usual  way  of  their  meals.  The 
few  casual  things  they  said  had  to  do  with 
the  weather  or  the  salad.  Then  it  was  over 
and  they  separated,  each  to  his  own  side  of 
the  divided  house. 

The  father  took  up  his  pen  to  write — it 
seemed  all  there  was  left  to  do  now.  But 
the  tiny  folded  note  arrested  his  hand,  and 
he  stared  in  amazement.  The  Child  had  in- 
advertently set  her  seal  upon  it  in  the  form 
of  a  little  finger-print.  So  he  knew  it  was 
hers.  The  first  shock  of  hope  it  had  awak- 
ened subsided  into  mere  curiosity.  But  when 
he  opened  it,  when  he  read  it — 
161 


The  Very  Small  Person 

He  sat  a  long  time  very  still  indeed — so 
still  he  could  hear  the  rustle  of  manuscript 
pages  in  the  other  writing-room  across  the 
hall.  Perhaps  he  sat  there  nearly  all  the 
afternoon,  for  the  shadows  lengthened  before 
he  seemed  to  move. 

In  the  rush  of  thoughts  that  came  to  him 
two  stood  out  most  clearly — the  memory  of 
an  awful  day,  when  he  had  seemed  to  die  a 
thousand  deaths,  and  only  come  to  life  when 
a  white-capped  nurse  came  smiling  to  him 
and  said,  "  It  is  a  little  girl,"  and  the  memory 
of  a  day  two  years  ago,  when  a  man  and  a 
woman  had  faced  each  other  and  said,  "We 
will  try  to  bear  it  for  the  child." 

The  Child  found  her  answer  lying  on  her 
plate  at  nursery  tea.  Marie,  who  was  bus- 
tling about  the  room  getting  things  orderly 
for  the  night,  heard  a  little  gasp  and  turned 
in  alarm.  The  Child  was  spelling  out  her 
letter  with  a  radiant  face  that  belied  the 
gasp.  There  was  something  in  the  lonely 
little  figure's  eagerness  that  appealed  even  to 
the  unemotional  maid,  and  for  a  moment 
there  was  likelihood  of  a  strange  thing  hap- 
162 


The  Child 

pening.  But  the  crisis  was  quickly  over, 
and  Marie,  with  the  kiss  unkissed  on  her 
lips,  went  on  with  her  work.  Emotions  were 
rare  with  Marie. 

'"Dear  Little  Girl,  Who  Is  You,'"  spelled 
the  Child,  in  a  soft  ecstasy,  yet  not  without 
dread  of  what  might  come,  supposing  he 
thought  she  had  been  impo — 

" ' Dear  Little  Girl,  Who  Is  You,'"  she  hur- 
riedly began  again,  "'your  farther  will  be 
happy  to  accept  your  kind  invitation  for  YZ 
past  7  this  evening.  Will  you  please  call  for 
him,  as  he  is  a  little — b-a-s-h-f-u-l' — Marie, 
what  does  b-a-s-h-f-u-l  spell?"  shrilled  the 
eager  voice.  It  was  a  new  word. 

Marie  came  over  to  the  Child's  chair. 
"How  can  I  tell  without  I  see  it?"  she  said. 
But  the  Child  drew  away  gently. 

"This  is  a  very  intimate  letter — you'll 
have  to  'xcuse  seeing  it.  Never  mind,  any- 
way, thank  you, — I  can  guess  it."  And  she 
guessed  that  it  spelled  the  way  she  would 
feel  when  she  called  for  her  father  at  half- 
past  seven,  for  the  Child  was  a  little  bashful, 
too.  She  told  the  Lady  so. 

"  163 


The  Very  Small   Person 

"  I  don't  dread  it;  I  just  wish  it  was  over," 
she  explained.  "It  makes  me  feel  a  little 
queer,  you  see.  Probably  you  wouldn't  feel 
that  way  if  you  was  better  acquainted  with 
a  person.  Fathers  and  mothers  are  kind  of 
strangers." 

She  was  ready  at  seven  o'clock,  and  sat, 
a  little  patient  statue,  watching  the  nursery- 
clock.  Marie,  who  had  planned  to  go  out 
and  had  intended  setting  the  hands  of  the 
clock  ahead  a  little,  was  unwarrantably  angry 
with  the  Child  for  sitting  there  so  persistent- 
ly. "Come,"  she  said,  impatiently;  "I've 
got  your  night-gown  ready.  This  clock's  too 
slow." 

"Truly,  is  it?"  the  Child  questioned,  anx- 
iously. "Slow  means  it's  'most  half -past, 
doesn't  it?  Then  I  ought  to  be  going!" 

"Yes, — come  along;"  but  Marie  meant  to 
bed,  and  the  Child  was  already  on  her  way 
to  her  father.  She  hurried  back  on  second 
thought  to  explain  to  Marie. 

"I've  engaged  somebody — there's  some- 
body else  going  to  put  me  to  bed  to-night. 
You  needn't  wait,  Marie,"  she  said,  her  voice 
164 


The  Child 

oddly  subdued  and   like  some  other  little 
girl's  voice  in  her  repressed  excitement. 

He  was  waiting  for  her.  He  had  been 
ready  since  half -past  six  o'clock.  Without 
a  word — with  only  an  odd  little  smile  that 
set  the  Child  at  ease — he  took  her  hand  and 
went  back  with  her.  The  door  of  the  other 
writing-room  was  ajar,  and  they  caught  a 
glimpse  as  they  went  by  of  a  slender,  stooping 
figure.  It  did  not  turn. 

"This  is  my  room,"  the  Child  introduced, 
gayly.  The  worst  was  over  now  and  all  the 
rest  was  best.  "You've  never  been  in  my 
room  before,  have  you?  This  is  where  I 
keep  my  clothes,  and  this  is  my  undressing- 
chair.  This  is  where  Marie  sits  —  you're 
Marie  to-night!"  The  Child's  voice  rang  out 
in  sudden,  sweet  laughter.  It  was  such  a 
funny  idea!  She  was  not  a  laughing  Child, 
and  the  little,  rippling  sound  had  the  effect 
of  escaping  from*  imprisonment  and  exult- 
ing at  its  freedom. 

"You  never  unbuttoned  a  little  girl  before, 
did  you ?  I'll  have  to  learn  you." 

"Teach  you,"  he  corrected,  gently. 
165 


The  Very  Small  Person 

"Marie  says  learn  you.  But  of  course  I'll 
say  'teach'  if  you  like  it  better,"  with  the 
ready  courtesy  of  a  hostess.  "You  begin 
with  my  feet  and  go  backwards!"  Again  the 
escaped  laughter.  The  Child  was  happy. 

Down  the  hall  where  the  slender  figure 
stooped  above  the  delicately  written  pages 
the  little  laugh  travelled  again  and  again. 
By -and -by  another  laugh,  deep  and  rich, 
came  hand  in  hand  with  it.  Then  the  figure 
straightened  tensely,  for  this  new  laugh  was 
rarer  even  than  the  Child's.  Two  years — 
two  years  and  more  since  she  had  heard  this 
one. 

"Now  it  is  time  to  pray  me,"  the  Child 
said,  dropping  into  sudden  solemnity.  "Ma- 
rie lets  me  kneel  to  her — "  hesitating  ques- 
tioningly.  Then:  "It's  pleasanter  to  kneel 
to  somebody — " 

"Kneel  to  me,"  he  whispered.  His  face 
grew  a  little  white,  and  his  hand,  when  he 
caressed  lightly  the  frolic-rumpled  little  head, 
was  not  steady.  The  stone  mask  of  the  man 
dropped  off  completely,  and  underneath  was 
tenderness  and  pain  and  love. 
166 


The  Child 

"Now  I  lame  me  down  to  sleep — no,  I 
want  to  say  another  one  to-night,  Lord  God, 
if  Thee  please.  This  is  a  very  particular 
night,  because  my  father  is  in  it.  Bless  my 
father,  Lord  God,  oh,  bless  my  father!  This 
is  his  day.  I've  loved  him  all  day,  and  I'm 
going  to  again  day  after  to-morrow.  But  to- 
morrow I  must  love  my  mother.  It  would 
be  easier  to  love  them  both  forever  and  ever, 
Amen." 

The  Child  slipped  into  bed  and  slept  hap- 
pily, but  the  man  who  was  father  of  the 
Child  had  new  thoughts  to  think,  and  it  took 
time.  He  found  he  had  not  thought  nearly 
all  of  them  in  his  afternoon  vigil.  On  his 
way  back  to  his  lonely  study  he  walked  a 
little  slower  past  the  other  lonely  study. 
The  stooping  of  the  slender  figure  newly 
troubled  him. 

The  plan  worked  satisfactorily  to  the 
Child,  though  there  was  always  the  danger 
of  getting  the  days  mixed.  The  first  mother- 
day  had  been  as  "intimate"  and  delightful 
as  the  first  father-one.  They  followed  each 
other  intimately  and  delightfully  in  a  long 
167 


The  Very  Small   Person 

succession.  Marie  found  her  perfunctory  ser- 
vices less  and  less  in  requisition,  and  her 
dazed  comprehension  of  things  was  divided 
equally  with  her  self  -  gratulation.  Life  in 
this  new  and  unexpected  condition  of  affairs 
was  easier  to  Marie. 

"I'm  having  a  beautiful  time,"  the  Child 
one  day  reported  to  the  Lady,  "only  some- 
times I  get  a  little  dizzy  trying  to  remember 
which  is  which.  My  father  is  which  to-day." 
And  it  was  at  that  bedtime,  after  an  unusually 
active  day,  that  the  Child  fell  asleep  at  her 
prayer.  Her  rumpled  head  sagged  more  and 
more  on  her  delicate  neck,  till  it  rested  side- 
wise  on  the  supporting  knees,  and  the  Child 
was  asleep. 

There  was  a  slight  stir  in  the  doorway. 

"'Sh!  don't  move  — sit  perfectly  still!" 
came  in  a  whisper  as  a  slender  figure  moved 
forward  softly  into  the  room. 

"Richard,  don't  move!  The  poor  little 
tired  thing — do  you  think  you  could  slip  out 
without  moving  while  I  hold  up  her  head — 
oh,  I  mean  without  joggling?  Now  —  oh, 
mamma's  little  tired  baby!  There,  there! — 
168 


The  Child 

'Sh!  Now  you  hold  her  head  and  let  me  sit 
down — now  put  her  here  in  my  arms,  Rich- 
ard." 

The  transfer  was  safely  made.  They  faced 
each  other,  she  with  her  baby,  he  standing 
looking  down  at  them.  Their  eyes  met 
steadily.  The  Child's  regular  breathing  alone 
stirred  the  silence  of  the  little  white  room. 
Then  he  stooped  to  kiss  the  Child's  face  as 
she  stooped,  and  their  kisses  seemed  to  meet. 
She  did  not  start  away,  but  smiled  instead. 

"I  want  her  every  day,  Richard!"  she 
said. 

"/  want  her  every  day,  Mary!" 

"Then  there  is  only  one  way.  Last  night 
she  prayed  to  have  things  changed  round — " 

"Yes,  Polly?" 

"We'll  change  things  round,  Dick." 

The  Child  was  smiling  in  her  sleep  as  if 
she  heard  them. 


CHAPTER    XI 

The    Recompense 


The   Recompense 


jHERE  were  all  kinds  of  words, 
— short  ones  and  long  ones. 
Some  were  very  long.  This 
one — we-ell,  maybe  it  wasn't 
so  long,  for  when  you're  nine 
you  don't  of  course  mind 
three-story  words,  and  this  one  looked  like  a 
three-story  one.  But  this  one  puzzled  you 
the  worst  ever! 

Morry  spelled  it  through  again,  searching 
for  light.  But  it  was  a  very  dark  word. 
R.ec-om-pense, — if  it  meant  anything  money-y, 
then  they'd  made  a  mistake,  for  of  course 
you  don't  spell  "pence"  with  an  "s." 

The  dictionary  was  across  the  room,  and 
you  had  to  stand  up  to  look  up  things  in  it, — 
Morry  wished  it  was  not  so  far  away  and 
J73 


The  Very  Small   Person 

that  you  could  do  it  sitting  down.  He  sank 
back  wearily  on  his  cushions  and  wished 
other  things,  too:  That  Ellen  would  come  in, 
but  that  wasn't  a  very  big  wish,  because 
Ellens  aren't  any  good  at  looking  up  words. 
That  dictionaries  grew  on  your  side  o'  the 
room, — that  wish  was  a  funny  one!  That 
Dadsy  would  come  home  —  oh,  oh,  that 
Dadsy  would  come  home! 

With  that  wish,  which  was  a  very  Big  One 
indeed,  came  trooping  back  all  Morry's 
Troubles.  They  stood  round  his  easy-chair 
and  pressed  up  close  against  him.  He 
hugged  the  most  intimate  ones  to  his  little, 
thin  breast. 

It  was  getting  twilight  in  the  great,  beau- 
tiful room,  and  twilight  was  trouble-time. 
Morry  had  found  that  out  long  ago.  It's 
when  it's  too  dark  to  read  and  too  light  for 
Ellens  to  come  and  light  the  lamps  that  you 
say  "Come  in!"  to  your  troubles.  They're 
always  there  waiting. 

If  Dadsy  hadn't  gone  away  to  do — that. 
If  he'd  just  gone  on  reg'lar  business,  or  on  a 
hurry-trip  across  the  ocean,  or  something 
174 


The  Recompense 

like  that.  You  could  count  the  days  and 
learn  pieces  to  surprise  him  with  when  he 
got  back,  and  keep  saying,  "Won't  it  be 
splendid!"  But  this  time — well,  this  time  it 
scared  you  to  have  Dadsy  come  home.  And 
if  you  learned  a  hundred  pieces  you  knew 
you'd  never  say  'em  to  him — now.  And  you 
kept  saying,  "Won't  it  be  puffectly  dread- 
ful!" 

"Won't  you  have  the  lamps  lit,  Master 
Morris?"  It  was  Ellen's  voice,  but  the 
Troubles  were  all  talking  at  once,  and  much 
as  ever  he  could  hear  it. 

"I  knew  you  weren't  asleep  because  your 
chair  creaked,  so  I  says,  'I  guess  we'll  light 
up,' — it's  enough  sight  cheerier  in  the  light"; 
and  Ellen's  thuddy  steps  came  through  the 
gloom  and  frightened  away  the  Troubles. 

"Thank  you,"  Morry  said,  politely.  It's 
easy  enough  to  remember  to  be  polite  when 
you  have  so  much  time.  "Now  I'd  like 
Jolly, — you  guess  he's  got  home  now,  don't 
you?"  ' 

Ellen's  steps  sounded  a  little  thuddier  as 
they  tramped  back  down  the  hall.  "It's  a 


The  Very  Small  Person 

good  thing  there's  going  to  be  a  Her  here  to 
send  that  common  boy  kiting!"  she  was 
thinking.  Yet  his  patches  were  all  Ellen — 
so  far — had  seen  in  Jolly  to  find  fault  with. 
Though,  for  that  matter,  in  a  house  beautiful 
like  this  patches  were,  goodness  knew,  out  of 
place  enough! 

"  Hully  Gee,  ain't  it  nice  an'  light  in  here!" 
presently  exclaimed  a  boy's  voice  from  the 
doorway. 

"Oh,  I'm  so  glad  you've  come,  Jolly! 
Come  right  in  and  take  a  chair, — take  two 
chairs!"  laughed  Morry,  in  his  excess  of 
welcome.  It  was  always  great  when  Jolly 
came!  He  and  the  Troubles  were  not  ac- 
quainted; they  were  never  in  the  room  at 
the  same  time. 

Morry's  admiration  of  this  small  bepatch- 
ed,  befreckled,  besmiled  being  had  begun 
with  his  legs,  which  was  not  strange,  they 
were  such  puffectly  straight,  limber,  splendid 
legs  and  could  go — my!  Legs  like  that  were 
great! 

But  it  was  noticeable  that  the  legs  were 
in  some  curious  manner  telescoped  up  out 
176 


The  Recompense 

of  sight,  once  Jolly  was  seated.  The  phe- 
nomenon was  of  common  occurrence, — they 
were  always  telescoped  then.  And  nothing 
had  ever  been  said  between  the  two  boys 
about  legs.  About  arms,  yes,  and  eyes,  ears, 
noses, — never  legs.  If  Morry  understood  the 
kind  little  device  to  save  his  feelings,  an 
instinctive  knowledge  that  any  expression  of 
gratitude  would  embarrass  Jolly  must  have 
kept  back  his  ready  little  thank  you. 

"Can  you  hunt  up  things?"  demanded  the 
small  host  with  rather  startling  energy.  He 
was  commonly  a  quiet,  self-contained  host. 
14  Because  there's  a  word — " 

But  Jolly  had  caught  up  his  cap,  untele- 
scoped  the  kind  little  legs,  and  was  already 
at  the  door.  Nothing  pleased  him  more  than 
a  commission  from  the  Little  White  Feller 
in  the  soft  chair  there. 

4  Til  go  hunt, — where 'd  I  be  most  likely 
to  find  him?" 

The  Little  White  FeUer  rarely  laughed, 

but  now — 44  You — you  Jolly  boy!"  he  choked, 

4 'you'll  find   him  under  a  hay -stack  fast 

aslee —    No,  no!"  suddenly  grave   and  so- 

177 


The  Very  Small   Person 

licitous  of  the  other's  feelings,  "in  the  dic- 
tionary, I  mean.  Words,  don't  you  know?" 

"Oh,  get  out!"  grinned  the  Jolly  boy,  in 
glee  at  having  made  the  Little  White  Feller 
laugh  out  like  that,  reg'lar-built.  "Hand 
him  over,  then,  but  you'll  have  to  do  the 
spellin'." 

"  Rec-om-pense, — p-e-n-s-e,"  Morry  said, 
slowly,  "I  found  it  in  a  magazine, — there's 
the  greatest  lot  o'  words  in  magazines! 
Look  up  'rec,'  Jolly, — I  mean,  please." 

Dictionaries  are  terrible  books.  Jolly  had 
never  dreamed  there  were  so  many  words 
in  the  world, — pages  and  pages  and  pages  of 
'em!  The  prospect  of  ever  finding  one  par- 
ticular word  'was  disheartening,  but  he 
plunged  in  sturdily,  determination  written 
on  every  freckle. 

"Don't  begin  at  the  first  page!"  cried 
Morry,  hastily.  "Begin  at  R,  —  it's  more 
than  half-way  through.  R-e, — r-e-c, — that 
way." 

Jolly  turned  over  endless  pages,  trailed 
laboriously  his  little,  blunt  finger  up  and 
down  endless  columns,  wet  his  lips  with  the 
178 


The  Recompense 

red  tip  of  his  tongue  endless  times, — wished 
'twas  over.  He  had  meant  to  begin  at  the 
beginning  and  keep  on  till  he  got  to  a 
w-r-e-c-k, — at  Number  Seven  they  spelled  it 
that  way.  Hadn't  he  lost  a  mark  for  spell- 
ing it  without  a  "  w  "  ?  But  of  course  if  folks 
preferred  the  r  kind — 

"Hi!"  the  blunt  finger  leaped  into  space 
and  waved  triumphantly.  "R-e-c-k, — I  got 
him!" 

' '  Not  '  k,  '—there  isn't  any  '  k. '  Go  back- 
wards till  you  drop  it,  Jolly, — you  dropped 
it?" 

Dictionaries  are  terrible,  —  still,  leaving  a 
letter  off  o'  the  end  isn't  as  bad  as  off  o'  the 
front.  Jolly  retraced  his  steps  patiently. 

"I've  dropped  it,"  he  announced  in  time. 

Morry  was  breathing  hard,  too.  Looking 
up  words  with  other  people's  fore-fingers  is 
pretty  tough. 

"Now,  the  second  story,  —  'rec'  is  the 
first,"  he  explained.  "You  must  find  'rec- 
om'  now,  you  know." 

No,  Jolly  did  not  know,  but  he  went  back 
to  the  work  undaunted.  "We'll  tree  him," 

13  179 


The  Very  Small  Person 

he  said,  cheerily,  "but  I  think  I  could  do  it 
easier  if  I  whistled" — 

"  Whistle,  "Morry  said. 

With  more  directions,  more  hard  breath- 
ing, more  wetting  of  lips  and  tireless  trailing 
of  small,  blunt  finger,  and  then  —  eureka! 
there  you  were!  But  eureka  was  not  what 
Jolly  said. 

"Bully  for  us!"  he  shouted.  He  felt 
thrilly  with  pride  of  conquest.  "It's  easy 
enough  finding  things.  What's  the  matter 
with  dictionaries!" 

"Now  read  what  it  means,  Jolly, — I  mean, 
please.  Don't  skip." 

" '  Rec-om-pense :  An  equi-va-lent  received 
or  re-turned  for  anything  given,  done,  or 
suff-er-ed ;  comp-ens-a-tion. ' ' 

"That  all?— every  speck?" 

"Well,  here's  another  one  that  says  'To 
make  a-mends,'  if  you  like  that  one  any 
better.  Sounds  like  praying." 

"Oh,"   sighed   Morry,    "how   I'd   like  to 

know  what  equi-valent  means!"  but  he  did 

not  ask  the  other  to  look  it  up.     He  sank 

back  on  his  pillows  and  reasoned  things  out 

1 80 


The    Recompense 

for  himself  the  best  way  he  could.  "To 
make  amends"  he  felt  sure  meant  to  make 
up.  To  make  up  for  something  given  or 
suffered, — perhaps  that  was  what  a  Rec-om- 
pense  was.  For  something  given  or  suffered 
— like  legs,  maybe  ?  Limp,  no-good-legs  that 
wouldn't  go?  Could  there  be  a  Rec-om- 
pense  for  those  f  Could  anything  ever  "make 
up"? 

"Supposing  you  hadn't  any  legs,  Jolly, — • 
that  would  go?"  he  said,  aloud,  with  dis- 
quieting suddenness.  Jolly  started,  but  nod- 
ded comprehendingly.  He  had  not  had  any 
legs  for  a  good  many  minutes;  the  telescop- 
ing process  is  numbing  in  the  extreme. 

"Do  you  think  anything  could  ever  Rec- 
om-pense — make  up,  you  know  ?  Especially 
if  you  suffered?  Please  don't  speak  up 
quick, — think,  Jolly." 

"I'm  a-thinkin'."  Not  to  have  'em  that 
would  go,  —  not  go!  Never  to  kite  after 
Dennis  O'Toole's  ice -wagon  an'  hang  on 
behind, — nor  see  who'd  get  to  the  corner 
first,  —  nor  stand  on  your  head  an'  wave 
'em — 

181 


The  Very  Small  Person 

"No,  sirree!"  ejaculated  Jolly,  with  unc- 
tion, "nothin'." 

"Would  ever  make  up,  you  mean?"  Morry 
sighed.  He  had  known  all  the  time,  of  course 
what  the  answer  would  be. 

' '  Yep,— nothin'  could. ' ' 

"  I  thought  so.  That's  all, — I  mean,  thank 
you.  Oh  yes,  there's  one  other  thing, — I've 
been  saving  it  up.  Did  you  ever  hear  of  a — 
of  a  step-mother,  Jolly?  I  just  thought  I'd 
ask." 

The  result  was  surprising.  The  telescoped 
legs  came  to  view  jerkily,  but  with  haste. 
Jolly  stumbled  to  his  feet. 

"I  better  be  a-goin',"  he  muttered,  think- 
ing of  empty  chip  -  baskets,  empty  water- 
pails,  undone  errands,  —  a  switch  on  two 
nails  behind  the  kitchen  door. 

"Oh,  wait  a  minute, — did  you  ever  hear 
of  one,  Jolly?" 

"You  bet,"  gloomily,  "I  got  one." 

"Oh!— oh,  I  didn't  know.  Then,"  rather 
timidly,  "perhaps  —  I  wish  you'd  tell  me 
what  they're  like." 

"Like  nothin'!  Nobody  likes  'em,"  came 
182 


The  Recompense 

with  more  gloom  yet  from  the  boy  with 
legs. 

"Oh!"  It  was  almost  a  cry  from  the  boy 
without.  This  was  terrible.  This  was  a 
great  deal  terribler  than  he  had  expected. 

"Would  one  be  angry  if — if  your  legs 
wouldn't  go?  Would  it  make  her  very,  do 
you  think?" 

Still  thinking  of  empty  things  that  ought 
to  have  been  filled,  Jolly  nodded  emphatically. 

"Oh!"     The  terror  grew. 

"Then  one — then  she — wouldn't  be — be 
glad  to  see  anybody,  I  suppose,  whose  legs 
had  never  been? — wouldn't  want  to  shake 
hands  or  anything,  I  suppose? — nor  be  in 
the  same  room?" 

"Nope."  One's  legs  may  be  kind  even  to 
the  verge  of  agony,  but  how  unkind  one's 
tongue  may  be!  Jolly's  mind  was  busy  with 
his  own  anticipated  woes;  he  did  not  know 
he  was  unkind. 

"That's  all, — thank  you,  I  mean,"  came 

wearily,  hopelessly,  from  the  pillows.     But 

Morry  called  the  other  back  before  he  got 

over  the  threshold.     There  was  another  thing 

183 


The  Very  Small  Person 

upon  which  he  craved  enlightenment.    It 
might  possibly  help  out. 

"Are  they  pretty,  Jolly?"  he  asked,  wist- 
fully. 

"Are  who  what?"  repeated  the  boy  on  the 
threshold,  puzzled.  Guilt  and  apprehension 
dull  one's  wits. 

' '  Step-ones, — mothers. " 

Pretty  ?  When  they  were  lean  and  sharp 
and  shabby!  When  they  kept  switches  on 
two  nails  behind  the  door, — when  they  wore 
ugly  clothes  pinned  together!  But  Jolly's 
eye  caught  the  wistfulness  on  Morry's  little, 
peaked,  white  face,  and  a  lie  was  born  within 
him  at  the  sight.  In  a  flash  he  understood 
things.  Pity  came  to  the  front  and  braced 
itself  stalwartly. 

"You  bet  they're  pretty!"  Jolly  exclaimed, 
with  splendid  enthusiasm.  "  Prettier 'n  any- 
thin'!  You'd  oughter  see  mine!"  (Record- 
ing Angel,  make  a  note  of  it,  when  you  jot 
this  down,  that  the  little  face  across  the  room 
was  intense  with  wistfulness,  and  Jolly  was 
looking  straight  that  way.  And  remember 
legs.) 

184 


The  Recompense 

When  Ellen  came  in  to  put  Morry  to  bed 
she  found  wet  spots  on  his  cushions,  but  she 
did  not  mention  them.  Ellens  can  be  wise. 
She  only  handled  the  limp  little  figure  rather 
more  gently  than  usual,  and  said  rather  more 
cheery  things,  perhaps.  Perhaps  that  was 
why  the  small  fellow  under  her  hands  decided 
to  appeal  in  his  desperation  to  her.  It  was 
possible — things  were  always  possible — that 
Ellen  might  know  something  of — of  step- 
ones.  For  Morry  was  battling  with  the  piti- 
fully unsatisfactory  information  Jolly  had 
given  him  before  understanding  had  con- 
ceived the  kind  little  lie.  It  was,  of  course, — 
Morry  put  it  that  way  because  "of  course" 
sometimes  comforts  you,  —  of  course  just 
possible  that  Jolly's  step-one  might  be  dif- 
ferent. Ellen  might  know  of  there  being 
another  kind. 

So,  under  the  skilful,  gentle  hands,  the 
boy  looked  up  and  chanced  it.  "Ellen,"  he 
said — "Ellen,  are  they  all  that  kind, — all  of 
'em?  Jolly's  kind,  I  mean?  I  thought 
poss'bly  you  might  know  one" — 

"Heart  alive!"  breathed  Ellen,  in  fear  of 
185 


The  Very  Small   Person 

his  sanity.  She  felt  his  temples  and  his 
wrists  and  his  limp  little  body.  Was  he  go- 
ing to  be  sick  now,  just  as  his  father  and  She 
were  coming  home?  —  now,  of  all  times! 
Which  would  be  better  to  give  him,  quinine, 
or  aconite  and  belladonna  ? 

"Never  mind,"  sighed  Morry,  hopelessly. 
Ellens  —  he  might  have  known  —  were  not 
made  to  tell  you  close  things  like  that.  They 
were  made  to  undress  you  and  give  you 
doses  and  laugh  and  wheel  your  chair  around. 
Jollys  were  better  than  Ellens,  but  they  told 
you  pretty  hard  things  sometimes. 

In  bed  he  lay  and  thought  out  his  little 
puzzles  and  steeled  himself  for  what  was  to 
come.  He  pondered  over  the  word  Jolly 
had  looked  up  in  the  dictionary  for  him. 
It  was  a  puzzly  word, — Rec-om-pense, — but 
he  thought  he  understood  it  now.  It  meant 
something  that  made  up  to  you  for  some- 
thing you'd  suffered, — "suffered,"  that  was 
what  it  said.  And  Morry  had  suffered — oh, 
how!  Could  it  be  possible  there  was  any- 
thing that  would  make  up  for  little,  limp, 
sorrowful  legs  that  had  never  been  ? 
186 


The  Recompense 

With  the  fickleness  of  night-thoughts  his 
musings  flitted  back  to  step-ones  again.  He 
shut  his  eyes  and  tried  to  imagine  just  the 
right  kind  of  one, — the  kind  a  boy  would  be 
glad  to  have  come  home  with  his  Dadsy.  It 
looked  an  easy  thing  to  do,  but  there  were 
limitations. 

"If  I'd  ever  had  a  real  one,  it  would  be 
easier,"  Morry  thought  wistfully.  Of  course, 
any  amount  easier!  The  mothers  you  read 
about  and  the  Holy  Ones  you  saw  in  pictures 
were  not  quite  real  enough.  What  you  need- 
ed was  to  have  had  one  of  your  own.  Then, 
— Morry 's  eyes  closed  in  a  dizzy  little  vision 
of  one  of  his  own.  One  that  would  have 
dressed  and  undressed  you  instead  of  an 
Ellen, — that  would  have  moved  your  chair 
about  and  beaten  up  the  cushions, — one  that 
maybe  would  have  loved  you,  legs  and  all! 

Why! — why,  that  was  the  kind  of  a  step- 
one  a  boy'd  like  to  have  come  home  with  his 
father!  That  was  the  very  kind!  While 
you'd  been  lying  there  thinking  you  couldn't 
imagine  one,  you'd  imagined!  And  it  was 
easy  ! 

187 


The  Very  Small  Person 

The  step-one  a  boy  would  like  to  have 
come  home  with  his  father  seemed  to  mate- 
rialize out  of  the  dim,  soft  haze  from  the 
shaded  night-lamp, — seemed  to  creep  out 
of  the  farther  shadows  and  come  and  stand 
beside  the  bed,  under  the  ring  of  light  on 
the  ceiling  that  made  a  halo  for  its  head. 
The  room  seemed  suddenly  full  of  its  gracious 
presence.  It  came  smiling,  as  a  boy  would 
like  it  to  come.  And  in  a  reg'lar  mother- 
voice  it  began  to  speak.  Morry  lay  as  if  in 
a  wondrous  dream  and  listened. 

"Are  you  the  dear  little  boy  whose  legs 
won't  go  ?"  He  gasped  a  little,  for  he  hadn't 
thought  of  there  being  a  "dear."  He  had 
to  swallow  twice  before  he  could  answer. 
Then:— 

"Oh  yes'm,  thank  you,"  he  managed  to 
say.  "  They're  under  the  bedclothes. " 

"Then  I've  come  to  the  right  place.  Do 
you  know — guess! — who  I  am?" 

"Are  —  are  you  a  step-one?"  breathing 
hard. 

"Why,  you've  guessed  the  first  time!"  the 
Gracious  One  laughed. 
188 


The  Recompense 

"Not — not  the  one,  I  s'pose?"  It  fright- 
ened him  to  say  it.  But  the  Gracious  One 
laughed  again. 

"  The  one,  yes,  you  Dear  Little  Boy  Whose 
Legs  Won't  Go!  I  thought  I  heard  you  call- 
ing me,  so  I  came.  And  I've  brought  you 
something." 

To  think  of  that! 

"Guess,  you  Dear  Little  Boy!  What 
would  you  like  it  to  be?" 

Oh,  if  he  only  dared!  He  swallowed  to 
get  up  courage.  Then  he  ventured  timidly. 

' '  A  Rec-om-pense. ' '     It  was  out. 

"Oh,  you  Guesser  —  you  little  Guesser! 
You've  guessed  the  second  time!" 

Was  that  what  it  was  like?  Something 
you  couldn't  see  at  all,  just  feel, — that  folded 
you  in  like  a  warm  shawl, — that  brushed 
your  forehead,  your  cheek,  your  mouth, — 
that  made  you  dizzy  with  happiness?  You 
lay  folded  up  in  it  and  knew  that  it  made  up. 
Never  mind  about  the  sorrowful,  limp  legs 
under  the  bedclothes.  They  seemed  so  far 
away  that  you  almost  forgot  about  them. 
They  might  have  been  somebody  else's, 
189 


The  Very  Small   Person 

while  you  lay  in  the  warm,  sweet  Rec-om- 
pense. 

"Will— will  it  last?"  he  breathed. 

"Always,  Morry." 

The  Gracious  Step-one  knew  his  name! 

"Then  Jolly  didn't  know  this  kind, — we 
never  s 'posed  there  was  a  kind  like  this! 
Real  Ones  must  be  like  this." 

And  while  he  lay  in  the  warm  shawl,  in  the 
soft  haze  of  the  night-lamp,  he  seemed  to 
fall  asleep,  and,  before  he  knew,  it  was  morn- 
ing. Ellen  had  come. 

"Up  with  you,  Master  Morris!  There's 
great  doings  to-day.  Have  you  forgot  who's 
coming?" 

Ellens  are  stupid. 

"She's  come."  But  Ellen  did  not  hear, 
and  went  on  getting  the  bath  ready.  If  she 
had  heard,  it  would  only  have  meant  quinine 
or  aconite  and  belladonna  to  drive  away 
feverishness.  For  Ellens  are  very  watchful. 

"They'll  be  here  most  as  soon  as  I  can  get 
you  up  'n'  dressed.  "I'm  going  to  wheel  you 
to  the  front  winder — " 

"No!"  Morry  cried,  sharply;  "I  mean, 
190 


The  Recompense 

thank  you,  no.  I'd  rather  be  by  the  back 
window  where  —  where  I  can  watch  for 
Jolly."  Homely,  freckled,  familiar  Jolly, — 
he  needed  something  freckled  and  homely 
and  familiar.  The  old  dread  had  come  back 
in  the  wake  of  the  beautiful  dream, — for  it 
had  been  a  dream.  Ellen  had  waked  him 
up. 

A  boy  would  like  to  have  his  father  come 
home  in  the  sunshine,  and  the  sun  was  shin- 
ing. They  would  come  walking  up  the  path 
to  the  front-door  through  it, — with  it  warm 
and  welcoming  on  their  faces.  But  it  would 
only  be  Dadsy  and  a  step-one, — Jolly's  kind, 
most  likely.  Jolly's  kind  was  pretty, — she 
might  be  pretty.  But  she  would  not  come 
smiling  and  creeping  out  of  the  dark  with  a 
halo  over  her  head.  That  kind  came  in 
dreams. 

Jolly's  whistle  was  comforting  to  hear. 
Morry  leaned  out  of  his  cushions  to  wave 
his  hand.  Jolly  was  going  to  school;  when 
he  came  whistling  back,  she  would  be  here. 
It  would  be  all  over. 

Morry  leaned  back  again  and  closed  his 
191 


The  Very  Small  Person 

eyes.  He  had  a  way  of  closing  them  when 
he  did  the  hardest  thinking,— and  this  was 
the  very  hardest.  Sometimes  he  forgot  to 
open  them,  and  dropped  asleep.  Even  in 
the  morning  one  can  be  pretty  tired. 

"Is  this  the  Dear  Little  Boy?" 

He  heard  distinctly,  but  he  did  not  open 
his  eyes.  He  had  learned  that  opening  your 
eyes  drives  beautiful  things  away. 

The  dream  had  come  back.  If  he  kept 
perfectly  still  and  didn't  breathe,  it  might 
all  begin  again.  He  might  feel — 

He  felt  it.  It  folded  him  in  like  a  warm 
shawl, — it  brushed  his  forehead,  his  cheek, 
his  lips, — it  made  him  dizzy  with  happiness. 
He  lay  among  his  cushions,  folded  up  in  it. 
Oh,  it  made  up, — it  made  up,  just  as  it  had 
in  the  other  dream! 

"You  Dear  Little  Boy  Whose  Legs  Won't 
Go!" — he  did  not  catch  anything  but  the 
first  four  words ;  he  must  have  breathed  and 
lost  the  rest.  But  the  tone  was  all  there. 
He  wanted  to  ask  her  if  she  had  brought  the 
Rec-om-pense,  but  it  was  such  a  risk  to 
speak.  He  thought  if  he  kept  on  lying  quite 
192 


The  Recompense 

still  he  should  find  out.  Perhaps  in  a 
minute — 

"You  think  he  will  let  me  love  him,  Mor- 
ris? Say  you  think  he  will!" 

Morris  was  Dadsy's  other  name.  Things 
were  getting  very  strange. 

"  Because  I  must !  Perhaps  it  will  make  up 
a  very  little  if  I  fold  him  all  up  in  my  love." 

"Fold  him  up" — that  was  what  the  warm 
shawl  had  done,  and  the  name  of  the  warm 
shawl  had  been  Rec-om-pense.  Was  there 
another  name  to  it  ? 

Morry  opened  his  eyes  and  gazed  up  won- 
deringly  into  the  face  of  the  step-one. — It 
was  a  Real  One's  face,  and  the  other  name 
was  written  on  it. 

"Why,  it's  Love!"  breathed  Morry.  He 
felt  a  little  dizzy,  but  he  wanted  to  laugh, 
he  was  so  happy.  He  wanted  to  tell  her — 
he  must. 

"It  makes  up — oh  yes,  it  makes  up!"  he 
cried,  softly. 


THE    END 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  UBRAR;. 'FACILITY 


A    000  131  191     9 


